Curse

LAMS3K · Jan 07, 2007, 08:00 PM // 20:00

I'd welcome seven heroes. For build variety and because I dislike henchmen.

My peeve with henchmen: Look at Aidan for example, he has been a marksman for most of his life and is thirty-two years of age. Yet us Rangers who have only been in GW for not even three years create and run builds that pummel any of his into the ground. Are the players that enter the GW world the only ones with any intellect? Now we have heroes that will learn from the player. Henchmen are just too stubborn to learn anything from those they group with. Just food for thought, no need to reply to it. Don't derail the thread.

Paperfly · Jan 09, 2007, 07:48 AM // 07:48

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Suggestion: Don't contradict yourself.

When you add multiple levels of extrapolation and speculative reasoning to what I post, it hardly counts as me "contradicting myself"!

Let's have a look, shall we?

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Now you complain about casual players finding better items more often. Which in turn will increase their chances of finding what they need rather than buying it.

...You are kidding, right? Or perhaps you play some other game, one in which you can enter into a text field exactly what sort of drop you'd prefer, complete with a drop-down menu for skin, mods and req?

The reality, however - in which most of us play - is that cash plus drops that get merched (which effectively amount to gold drops), accumulate faster than perfect drops of a type that we would chose to use or even to sell at a premium*. That's why players use the monies to buy the precious shinies!

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This will increase the supply of expensive items and decrease the demand, lowering the prices.

Normal play, as I've stated above, increases cash funds disproportionately to genuinely-rare items. The introduction of heroes in Nightfall could have been an absolute disaster in that regard ... except that the Inscriptions system knocked the bottom out of Nightfall's rare items market in what may or may not have been an act of genius on ANet's part (I'm not willing to dismiss the possibility of serendipity, so I'm not giving them full credit for it yet!). The introduction of additional heroes would come with no such balancing effect - hence inflation as people have more gold and less to spend it on.

To put it another way, the new "free" treasure chests have caused relatively little inflation because they come with a free gold item in addition to the 1.5-2K gold drop. In normal play, however, you're very unlikely to see one gold drop for every 2K in crap you pick up off the ground.

*We're excluding power-trader types, since they're obviously too 'hardcore' for the argument in question. In fact, the noobier you are, the more the argument applies!

devils wraths · Jan 09, 2007, 09:37 AM // 09:37

carnt see the problem you can do anything to you heroes just like real players. i mean you pick skills fo hero. you can for a real person whats the problem.

KiyoshiKyokai · Jan 09, 2007, 09:55 AM // 09:55

I don't know how I feel about 7 heroes. Having read the majority of the thread, I see both arguments as very valid. Seven heroes gives you a ton of flexibility, which you ought to expect from a tactical strategy game. (Maybe not "Tactical Strategy", but definitely involving healthy helpings of both strategy and tactics.)

Especially in NF, some players were loathe to fight the incredibly powered enemies in RoT and DoA (whole teams of lvl 28s were introduced quite fast in NF, and they self-replicate O_O), while other players breezed through the campaign.

Basically, there are a number of reasons for this:
* Heros can be built to interact with your character. This synergy makes them vastly more powerful than any human ally (who has his own build) and extemely better than a henchmen (who has his own crappy build).
* Heros have all the advantages of henchmen, and none of the negatives. They think faster, interrupt quicker, and have no lag (like henchmen vs. players). However, they also have access to your high-level skills (especially if you've beaten other campaigns before) unlike henchmen.

So basically, it was your competence with building heroes that determined your success in NF, IMO.

I've noticed that my MM Olias is far more efficient than my PC MM, simply because he can keep tabs on all the minions, and select between them vastly easier than I can with my mouse. Also, Mesmer Norgu can interrupt far more effectively, since he can trigger interrupts the second he sees enemies using skills, not sending a message to the server. Who knows, he may even be able to keep tabs on all the enemies' actions at once? In this sense, heroes have some AI advantages that humans can never match.

If I could choose to indirectly control 8 heroes, I would do that rather than directly control my one character and 3 heroes. It's far more effective for combat.

I think the question we should ask is not "whether I need 7 heroes?", but, "why do your 7 heroes need you?"

Those of us who like PUGs have to do something to stop the "heroism" that has taken hold of GW Nightfall. But what is there to do? We have to make ourselves better than heroes. We have to come up with multiple builds that we can switch out to match the party. We have to be courteous enough to forfeit our eigth skill slot for a rez skill. We have to take orders and give orders like responsible leaders and teammates. Until we do this, PUGs will continue to die.

On a second note, I think, rather than adding more heroes in the new expansion, it would be cool if the next GW would give us the option to make our existing PCs into heroes. That way I could adventure with all of my player characters at once, rather than some heroes I don't really like too much.

Also, earlier in the thread, someone commented that they couldn't get Dunkoro to use spell breaker unless they manually gave it to him. Note that heroes will spam the skills on the left hand of their skill bar, and only use those on the right as a last resort. Thus, important spells like spell breaker should go on the left, and your emergency skills (such as rez signet), should go on the right.

FoxBat · Jan 09, 2007, 10:12 AM // 10:12

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Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

The user interface?

You only have to add 4 more flags and give us add 4 more head slots to the hero and skill windows.

Try fitting that on your UI. Not all of us play in 1600+ with small interface. Or want to try and micro that. Or need to fill our compass with 8 buttons.

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The countless high end quests which you have to start from low end areas, such as the Titan Quests in Tyria, because no humans do them.

The masters quests in NF which need a bit more specialisation then henches, when you cant find an 8 man PUG, because no one does them.

Sorrows Furnace where, again you need more specialised AI to help, because virtually no one does that except to farm.

You're really not very good. Well I'll admit DNKP can be quite rough with only 4, although it is doable.

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Exploring areas between Beacons Perch and the War camp going south. Which you cant do alone and it can be impossible to find a team of lvl20s willing to explore it instead of just running it. So you need a full lvl20 team.

It's much easier with an 8-player full lvl 20 team. Which you can't have in beacons. Just start from war camp, snake dance is a breeze with searing flames.

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It would benefit you in DOA, where they have no henches.

You aren't beating DoA with that many AIs. Though I'd have alot of respect for a 2-man team that pulled this off with insane micro, I have yet to hear of such, and rarer still the person that could do it with 7. I just laugh at the people that beg for henchies there, they obviously haven't stepped outside once.

Samuel Dravis · Jan 09, 2007, 05:04 PM // 17:04

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Originally Posted by Paperfly

...Er, what? Reducing the difficulty of the game changes how you experience missions. Farming is irrelevant to that particular point (and only incidental to my later comment about inflationary effects). I don't farm; it bores me to tears.

IMO, I don't care to have to grind through fights. If the team is better than the opposition, it should show that. Having a specific build for a mission is not reducing the numbers/skills/ai used by the enemy; it's making yours more effective. I don't see how the ability to do that should be disallowed in any way.

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Hardly. The oft-cited figure is that ANet estimates most players have less than 20K in the bank at any time (remember - we're hardcore forum goers by comparison!). That's not enough to buy a +30 Sword fortitude mod!

I have never bought a +30. For anything. If I want a fortitude, I'll pick up something like a +27 or thereabouts. It hardly matters in PvE. If I want a perfect weap I can get it from a collector. Most of my cash is locked up in shard and ecto drops which I've been saving since I bought the game at release. I haven't sold a single ecto, and I haven't bought one either.

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FoW's a bit of an exception because it's relatively open. Compare it to high-end Nightfall areas, which are densely packed with mobs with erratic movement patterns. Under those circumstances the tight movement control you get from heroes is a huge benefit - whereas if you're taking human players they tend to spread out and risk aggro.

Compared with a competent group that knows what they're doing, I agree that PuGs are a bad way to go. I have no idea what people in PuGs think when they aggro the whole map. Of course, I've had groups that were very careful and never overaggroed anything. They were competent. I still fail to see what the difference is between an experienced group and heroes controlled by an experienced person that makes one overpowered and not the other.

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...And no, there aren't four ranger henchies (plus orders, MM and monk); but throw in a Command Paragon and a Critical Barrager 'sin on top of the two rangers and you're close enough for government work.

So I guess it's not possible to be as good as a experienced human team, making those even more unbalanced! They should be nerfed.

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But seriously, I think you're understating the case. A modular PuG with a decent attribute/skill spread is inferior to a well-crafted hero team because you still can't control those synergies that put a set build over the top power-wise (I'll use an Orders necro as an example again because it's a good, obvious one. There's others).

Well, it's actually fairly easy to put together an orders team, so long as your necro has the skills. I did one with a bunch of warriors in Nahpui quarter when I was on my necro. I just had all the warriors ping their weapons to make sure they weren't using elemental and off we went. Orders is not really a team build insofar as it really requires only one person to change their build to make it work acceptably.

Personally, I would join a fairly decent PuG regardless of what heroes I have if I don't mind about the time it takes. As long as the people know what they're doing, even the much-maligned FotM builds will clear through an area quickly. None of them even need maxed weapons, items, heck, even less than max armor may not be a problem if they're casters and know how to kite. My problems with PuGs only arise when the people don't know what they're doing and have no idea how to create a fairly reasonable skillset.

I agree with you, a complete team build put together by one (experienced) person is much, much better than the normal PuG you can get into. However, I think that says more about player experience than that the ability to do so is overpowered.

Kuya B · Jan 10, 2007, 05:09 AM // 05:09

I've read through most of the thread. Some of the arguments seem valid but a bit hyperbole at times. Personally I enjoy doing both; joining a group for missions and taking out my heroes for other things I want to do (mapping, quests, etc...).

I'm sure we all have bad experiences with pugs (I have wasted a whole day once trying to cap one skill with pugs in three different locations). Giving us more heroes, maybe even just one more, would aleviate some of this frustration. Also, customizing heroes and testing out builds/synergy is fun and a great way to learn more about other classes.

To Anet (if anyone's reading), it would be great for the consumer to have more options, not less. For those who choose to pug, which I still do for missions and elite areas, the option is there. But, I would love the opportunity to take out more heroes and test/build them, it's part of the fun. I will most definitely buy chpt. 4 if more heroes (even just one more) becomes an option.

Paperfly · Jan 10, 2007, 08:10 AM // 08:10

Samuel, you seem to be a little obsessed with the specifics of my examples and aren't really adressing the arguments behind them at all.

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having a specific build for a mission is not reducing the numbers/skills/ai used by the enemy; it's making yours more effective. I don't see how the ability to do that should be disallowed in any way.

So you're saying we should all have infinite health? Because that wouldn't reduce "the numbers/skills/ai used by the enemy". And it would certainly make your build more effective!

Making your team more powerful amounts to reducing the difficulty of the game. Is that really a hard concept to grasp?

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I have never bought a +30.

...I'm failing to see what relevance this paragraph has to anything in the known universe ("Including the black holes!" - Eric Bana). What does the way you manage your ecto stack have to do with the average gold reserves of the casual player?

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Compared with a competent group that knows what they're doing, I agree that PuGs are a bad way to go. I have no idea what people in PuGs think when they aggro the whole map. Of course, I've had groups that were very careful and never overaggroed anything. They were competent.

Heh, this is the one occasion where you might want to take into account the specifics of my example. Forget PuGs, fewer than one Vent-enabled guild team in a hundred could clear out the Rain of Terror groups from the Domain of Fear just outside the Gate of Secrets entrance without aggroing more than one mob at any time. There's some serious wandering AI going on there, and even with heroes it takes some good reflexes on the flags.

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I still fail to see what the difference is between an experienced group and heroes controlled by an experienced person that makes one overpowered and not the other.

Easy - the latter are available at five minute's notice to everyone, at all times.

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So I guess it's not possible to be as good as a experienced human team, making those even more unbalanced! They should be nerfed.

Oh noes, you have me caught in the crushing grasp of your reason! I die in agony!

...Wait, what? This discussion was about how allowing the use of additional heroes in a group was a "choice", and the inevitable "choice is always good!" argument cropped up. I brought up several ways in which all players would be affected, whether they made use of this "choice" or not, and several of those ways hinged on a hypothetical increased power level becoming available to everyone. So what are you talking about, again?

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However, I think that says more about player experience than that the ability to do so is overpowered.

"Overpowered" is a weird term to measure in PvE. A skill, for instance, would only be "overpowered" in PvE if it seriously distorted the gameplay of multiple areas and/or obsoleted dozens of other previously viable tactics. And even then it would only need to be nerfed if the popularity got out of control. A suitable example would be the old infinite-minions MMs.

There's a second hidden alternative here, though - is something ruining the play experience for people? Taking into account the fact that (obviously) you can't please everyone all the time.

...That's why I've been addressing the issue raised in this thread in terms of gameplay consequences to everyone. This is not a minor change that would give people some fun cosmetic extra options, it is a fundamental move in a certain direction with regards to the game's core design.

And personally, I think further promoting something that compromised the core gameplay in the first place would be a horribly bad move.

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Originally Posted by Kuya B

Some of the arguments seem valid but a bit hyperbole at times.

Heh, welcome to the internet. We're all so jaded that things have to be expressed in earth-destroying-versus-ultimate-bliss terms to make any sort of impact. I still stand by my call (in another thread) for whoever wrote the Attack at the Kodash Bazaar quest to be sacked, though.

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To Anet (if anyone's reading), it would be great for the consumer to have more options, not less.

...GAH! Oh, why do I even bother.

Samuel Dravis · Jan 11, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

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Originally Posted by Paperfly

Samuel, you seem to be a little obsessed with the specifics of my examples and aren't really adressing the arguments behind them at all.

So you're saying we should all have infinite health? Because that wouldn't reduce "the numbers/skills/ai used by the enemy". And it would certainly make your build more effective!

That isn't legitimately allowed by the game as it is. Having an effective team is.

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Making your team more powerful amounts to reducing the difficulty of the game. Is that really a hard concept to grasp?

The ability to do so has always existed. There's no change in difficulty.

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...I'm failing to see what relevance this paragraph has to anything in the known universe ("Including the black holes!" - Eric Bana). What does the way you manage your ecto stack have to do with the average gold reserves of the casual player?

The casual player doesn't need weapons with +30. The casual player doesn't need weapons that are max. The causal player - any player - doesn't need perfect anything in PvE. And things that are not perfect are, for the most part, dirt cheap and easily within the grasp of anyone.

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Heh, this is the one occasion where you might want to take into account the specifics of my example. Forget PuGs, fewer than one Vent-enabled guild team in a hundred could clear out the Rain of Terror groups from the Domain of Fear just outside the Gate of Secrets entrance without aggroing more than one mob at any time. There's some serious wandering AI going on there, and even with heroes it takes some good reflexes on the flags.

Being annhiliated nearly every time you go outside is fun? Okay. Whatever. I don't think it is, though.

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Easy - the latter are available at five minute's notice to everyone, at all times.

So you object to people being able to choose, being able to play with builds etc. Okay. If you like it "harder" take henchies or cripple your own builds. Myself, I'll likely play as I do regardless of the number of heroes. I spam lfp a few times and then I go when no one bothers to invite and I get tired of waiting.

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Oh noes, you have me caught in the crushing grasp of your reason! I die in agony!

Ye gods! What have I done!

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...Wait, what? This discussion was about how allowing the use of additional heroes in a group was a "choice", and the inevitable "choice is always good!" argument cropped up. I brought up several ways in which all players would be affected, whether they made use of this "choice" or not, and several of those ways hinged on a hypothetical increased power level becoming available to everyone. So what are you talking about, again?

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"Overpowered" is a weird term to measure in PvE. A skill, for instance, would only be "overpowered" in PvE if it seriously distorted the gameplay of multiple areas and/or obsoleted dozens of other previously viable tactics. And even then it would only need to be nerfed if the popularity got out of control. A suitable example would be the old infinite-minions MMs.

I think they nerfed that because of the minion factory groups in pvp, not because of pve. I agree, there's few changes that would seriously unbalance PvE. I don't think heroes will do that, mainly because PvE was built with a team in mind. Relative effectiveness seems to me irrelevant because PvE is already balanced to a reasonably competent group.

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There's a second hidden alternative here, though - is something ruining the play experience for people? Taking into account the fact that (obviously) you can't please everyone all the time.

Yes. Bad players. That's a definite game-ruiner.

Like I said, if having heroes is a game-ruining experience for some...just don't take the heroes or cripple their builds. I don't care what you do.

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...That's why I've been addressing the issue raised in this thread in terms of gameplay consequences to everyone. This is not a minor change that would give people some fun cosmetic extra options, it is a fundamental move in a certain direction with regards to the game's core design.

Define the game's "core design," and tell me why giving people ability to make competent teams when none are available violates it. There are already henchmen since day one; heroes (the idea has been requested for a loong time) since NF; this clearly indicates that people want that kind of control over their builds, particularly in PvE.

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And personally, I think further promoting something that compromised the core gameplay in the first place would be a horribly bad move.

Okay, define "core gameplay," and tell how it's being/been compromised.

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...GAH! Oh, why do I even bother.

Because you are incurably masochistic.

Phoenix Arrows · Jan 11, 2007, 12:52 AM // 00:52

The reason that there are only 3 heroes per person is that heroes make the whole team better than just henchies.

Example:
Lvl 15 A (me)
Lvl 12 Ne (Olias)
Lvl 12 Mo (Talkhora)
Lvl 12 Mo (Dunkoro)

Do you think you could kill all the bugs outside Yohlon Haven without separating the mobs with Henchies at level 12 instead of heroes? I doubt it.

The reason it works: You can set heroes to play to the bugs' weaknesses and use builds that can overcome the amount of monsters there are.

Olias as MM for minion tanks, both Monks with Shield of Absorption for concentrated damage = gg bugs.

I doubt they will make it 7 heroes, but it wouldn't hurt for those in need.

Paperfly · Jan 12, 2007, 03:50 AM // 03:50

(Quick aside: )

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Being annhiliated nearly every time you go outside is fun? Okay. Whatever. I don't think it is, though.

(Actually, no. This is easily my least favourite area of the game. I feel it's horribly implemented, arbitrary, and simply unfun. However, I strongly feel that this area's existence is due entirely to the implementation of the Hero system - it's yet another example of a part of Nightfall designed in such a way as to make human players a liability. That's slightly off topic, though.)

Back on topic, and I'll stick to core arguments this time (

):

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So you object to people being able to choose, being able to play with builds etc. Okay. If you like it "harder" take henchies or cripple your own builds. Myself, I'll likely play as I do regardless of the number of heroes. I spam lfp a few times and then I go when no one bothers to invite and I get tired of waiting.

Well, let's look past the fact that the introduction (and specific implementation) of heroes made finding PuGs harder in the first place, creating a downward spiral to where we are today.

...You might want to go back to my original post, lo these many pages before. The only reason I'm talking about differing power levels is that it's contingent on some of my arguments there.

And what's important about those arguments is that they show that an increase in the number of available heroes would affect even those people who choose not to use them. My point is that the "it's CHOICE, and CHOICE is always strictly better than not having that CHOICE!" argument comes straight from a bull's digestive system! There are knock-on effects. There are always knock-on effects, as anyone who's followed game design for any length of time will tell you.

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Relative effectiveness seems to me irrelevant because PvE is already balanced to a reasonably competent group.

I honestly don't think it is. I honestly think Nightfall was optimised for hero groups, and that human play was considered only secondarily.

...Note that I'm not claiming that it's too difficult for human groups, simply that it wasn't designed for them. Consequently, the experience is less fun for humans than it could be.

To put it another way, Nightfall seems to have been designed as a single-player RPG with crappier dialogue and MMOG economics. And I'm going to come right out, again, and blame the hero system.

Samuel Dravis · Jan 12, 2007, 04:34 AM // 04:34

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Originally Posted by Paperfly

Well, let's look past the fact that the introduction (and specific implementation) of heroes made finding PuGs harder in the first place, creating a downward spiral to where we are today.

I actually agree with that, to a degree. With the ability to make an MM and tell your henchmen where to go, the missions that previously were extremely hard to do with henchmen became quite easy, making it much easier to choose henchies over people. Just the ability to tell henchies where to go might have been the dealbreaker, regardless of heroes being added or not.

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...You might want to go back to my original post, lo these many pages before. The only reason I'm talking about differing power levels is that it's contingent on some of my arguments there.

And what's important about those arguments is that they show that an increase in the number of available heroes would affect even those people who choose not to use them. My point is that the "it's CHOICE, and CHOICE is always strictly better than not having that CHOICE!" argument comes straight from a bull's digestive system! There are knock-on effects. There are always knock-on effects, as anyone who's followed game design for any length of time will tell you.

Why do you think that anyone who PuGs now will stop doing it with the addition of more heroes? As many people have pointed out, 3 heroes is plenty enough to be better than almost all random PuGs. Ergo, all who would want to go solo are already doing so, because there is no reason not to. It seems reasonable, then, to conclude that the players who want to PuG will still do so regardless of the amount of heroes because they are clearly still wanting to get into groups right now.

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I honestly don't think it is. I honestly think Nightfall was optimised for hero groups, and that human play was considered only secondarily.

...Note that I'm not claiming that it's too difficult for human groups, simply that it wasn't designed for them. Consequently, the experience is less fun for humans than it could be.

There's little difference between an experienced group and a hero group in the right hands. TBH, most of the places in Prophecies and Factions were pretty easy with a good group. I guess Anet decided to make some a bit harder this time around, to the detriment of the usually bad PuGs.

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To put it another way, Nightfall seems to have been designed as a single-player RPG with crappier dialogue and MMOG economics. And I'm going to come right out, again, and blame the hero system.

I've got to agree with the crappy dialogue. Hey, we even had that in Factions too! I just shut sound off when there were cutscenes there - it was just to painful to hear Shiro talk.

I still don't think that heroes are the true problem with PuGs, however. The true problem is that many people are simply not good enough to compete with the AI, and that's something that Anet can't fix. And so, when actually good players run blast down missions that are optimized for okay teams, they get annoyed because it is so easy. When Anet makes it harder for the good teams, the crappy ones are stuck with an impossible situation; they just can't win because they apparently aren't skilled enough to. Who honestly wants to depend on a clueless player - and so heroes get used.

freekedoutfish · Jan 12, 2007, 09:09 AM // 09:09

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Originally Posted by FoxBat

Try fitting that on your UI. Not all of us play in 1600+ with small interface. Or want to try and micro that. Or need to fill our compass with 8 buttons.

You're really not very good. Well I'll admit DNKP can be quite rough with only 4, although it is doable.

It's much easier with an 8-player full lvl 20 team. Which you can't have in beacons. Just start from war camp, snake dance is a breeze with searing flames.

You aren't beating DoA with that many AIs. Though I'd have alot of respect for a 2-man team that pulled this off with insane micro, I have yet to hear of such, and rarer still the person that could do it with 7. I just laugh at the people that beg for henchies there, they obviously haven't stepped outside once.

I actually play on around 1024 x 780 or what ever it is, which is the standard resolution now. My computer would die at a higher resolution.

Im really not very good? I only have 5 quest left out of the entire game and all 3 campaigns, which includes 2 titan quests, the DOA quests and some ROT quests.

All quests which either I dont like because I dont like DOA, or I cant do because NOOOOOO one does them. Its not a question of being good or bad, and its out of line to suggest im a bad player as ive constantly stated that it was due to the number of players not ability.

As for exploring from beacons perch. I have KOABD with 100% on all 3, so I know how to explore all the maps. At the time, it took me months of going north from the war camp to get the area between north and south shiverpeaks.

But there comes a point when you cant go north and you have to go south to connect them, because your at -60dp otherwise and you dont last 2 seconds. And considering my main is an elemental I dont have the benefit of huge armor and health or running.

So you DO have to move south from beacons to explore that section, and you can very rarely get a team together who is willing to explore because most people want run to Droks. They dont care about exploration from there.

So my statement about there not always being a full team of lvl20s available when you need them is completely true and valid.

As for saying to need henches or more heroes in DOA. I agree that was daft, its an elite area and we should use PUGs.

Paperfly · Jan 13, 2007, 09:33 AM // 09:33

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Why do you think that anyone who PuGs now will stop doing it with the addition of more heroes? As many people have pointed out, 3 heroes is plenty enough to be better than almost all random PuGs. Ergo, all who would want to go solo are already doing so, because there is no reason not to. It seems reasonable, then, to conclude that the players who want to PuG will still do so regardless of the amount of heroes because they are clearly still wanting to get into groups right now.

...I think that because people have been making your exact same argument since before Nightfall came out. Let's face it, henchies were already all the genuinely good players ever needed.

However, I think the release of Nightfall has shown that the "intermediate" player base - the group who could finish the game but genuinely believed they needed two human monks at all times - was much larger than expected. I've been very sensitive to the PuG market over the last few months, and I feel confident in stating that a lot of that demographic has shifted to heroes.

I've also noticed that in what's left of the PuG market there's a lot of people who still feel like they're underpowered, and I strongly suspect that many of them will move to all-heroes if given the option.

(and I'm not sure why the PvE preview weekend didn't ring a zillion alarm bells in ANet's mind in that regard!)

...Fewer than moved out initially, mind - the big hurdle was getting the two hero monks, after all. That's why it's only one of my several objections to the OP.

(There's also a thread up now debating why PuG's are shrinking, but I'm staying out of that one. First, because it's too many pages in now for me to make much of an impression, and secondly because the thread starts with "well, I think PuGs suck and have totally made up my mind" and I doubt I could add anything productive to that particular mix.)

FoxBat · Jan 13, 2007, 10:34 AM // 10:34

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Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

Im really not very good? I only have 5 quest left out of the entire game and all 3 campaigns, which includes 2 titan quests, the DOA quests and some ROT quests.

Why are you complaining about "elite quests" after you've mastered them then? For the sake of people who aren't very good? You know, the not-elite? (Not that those quests are very elite... but that is what Anet calls them, like DoA)

Maguuma titan quest has been easily henchable or soloed since before factions, Last Day Dawns and Titan Source are "supposed" to be 4-player and are very doable that way, DNKP I admit is difficult and the one that might be worth arguing for, but 4-man teams have done it. The only trouble parts in sorrow's furnace were defending Alkar (maybe) and the rage binders, which can now be pwned fairly easily with hero/hench flagging. I have a guildy who henched all of tombs as a water ele with the zaishen idiots way before NF came out, after I encouraged him how to get past the second map when playing there myself... dreadnaught's drift is nothing compared to that if you are careful with your aggro and have a good hero build plus flagging.

Also so far factions and NF haven't really set any challenging quests in lowbie places that allow more than 4 characters, so this doesn't seem like it will be an issue in future chapters. I'm not sure I find the addition of 7 heros *that* appalling, just the argument that PvE is too difficult without it.

escoffier · Jan 13, 2007, 10:42 AM // 10:42

omg this thread is still open,and active we get three for now live with it.i think everyone can make 1 friend and between the 2 of you have 6 heroes and two people.LIVE WITH WHAT YOU'VE BEEN GIVEN.

Maria Moon · Jan 13, 2007, 11:13 AM // 11:13

shame some of you guys are so hard on the pugs and new players,..we were all newbies at some point right?

Anyway, back to the point, i have to agree with the majority of overpowered parties, and it would take the "r" out of "party" ok that made no sense, but anyway ya i think it is something anet saw beforehand and so designed the game differently ,..

but thank you for at least coming up with a new idea for us to work with even if people tossed it around i am sure they all appreciate the effort, right guys?

freekedoutfish · Jan 13, 2007, 12:11 PM // 12:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by escoffier

omg this thread is still open,and active we get three for now live with it.i think everyone can make 1 friend and between the 2 of you have 6 heroes and two people.LIVE WITH WHAT YOU'VE BEEN GIVEN.

So you think the thread should be closed just because you dont agree with having 7 heroes?

Thats one up for freedom of opinion isnt it. Instead of having a nice debate and an arguement, we'll just cloed all threads shortly after or before they start because escoffier doesnt agree with them.

That'l be the new moderating method from now on.

Yes its still open and its a worth while subject to discuss.

escoffier · Jan 13, 2007, 12:23 PM // 12:23

no i'm not saying it should be closed because of that freekoutfish im saying heroes was a gift given to us to help alleviate the PUG problems.however i believe it's well known that 7 heroes would be overpowering in almost all areas besides DoA. now yes a beginner with 7 heroes is not much of a force but, an experienced player with slight foreknowledge of what is ahead of them can easily set there 7 heroes to where it would simply be overpowering.not to mention the fact that it does somewhat remove from the fact that this is a Cooperative Online Role Playing Game.hence the corpg.i apologize for believeing that arenanet has reasons for the things they do such as having a three hero per person limit.oh and please i agree please give me 7 heroes so i can never PUG again(just kidding i like to PUG)

grottoftl · Jan 13, 2007, 02:58 PM // 14:58

a party of 1 human player and 7 heroes is overpowering? how can a party of 1 player and 7 heroes can be overpowering and any different than a party of 8 skillful experienced real players with the same skill set? oh and escoffier we always had the option of playing with real people or not. just because they labeled it as a co-op rpg doesn't mean we have to play with others to enjoy it even in other mmo's. talking about the pve side anyways.