Curse

sterbenx2 · Aug 28, 2007, 07:21 PM // 19:21

I am tired of hearing the often repeated and completly invalid "if you don't want to play with people, don't play online games" argument. Well, games like Diablo 2 have an offline option, and people DO play it offline. GW doesn't have that option, if it did, then this argument would make sense.

I am one that has tired to help newbies before and what do I get for it, the occasional, thanks, but mostly, shut up, I'll do whatever I want and "insert vulger statment" PuGs are bad. And don't say "join a guild" yea, tried that, MANY times. doesn't work. Basically I have WAY too much stuff that I need to do to complete my personal set goals in-game. I can't waste said time losing a mission 5 times in a row. Sry. Besides, like it has already been said, If I lose, I want it to be MY fault.

SetsunaSamurai · Aug 28, 2007, 07:26 PM // 19:26

A lot of posters forget that Guild Wars is meant to be both a single player AND a multi player experience. What do you people think the henchies and heros are for?

Solo play with henchies is one of the ways the game was designed to be played, why on Earth would people complain about their popularity?

-Makai- · Aug 28, 2007, 07:28 PM // 19:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by DergeDraconis

That is the absolute most self centered drivel I have ever heard. I'm sorry your 30 years old and decomposing, with one foot in the grave, and there's no one else around as old as you my distinguished grey haired sir...err wait, 25-30 is one of the main demographics of this game genre...you must just be high or just too smug to participate in social events. Sorry.

I don't believe his/her statement was about smugness or being a hop-head.

I'm 22 and feel almost exactly like s/he does. There's a lot of social/cultural differences between a teenager and an older player and it's understandable why s/he would be apprehensive about partying with them. There's also the age vs maturity debate (if that demographic is true, then it could be argued that MMOs are a regular ice cream social for "manchildren"), but I don't want to kick a dead horse.

Angra · Aug 28, 2007, 07:44 PM // 19:44

I don't bother with PUGs in PVE... I did it once this weekend for frostmaws. They got slaughtered on the 2nd level, and took forever to get there. Went back and got Hero+Hench, got slaughtered on 3rd level, in about the same amount of time. Went back, brought a hero interrupter, beat the dungeon 4 times in a row for stuff to sell, in an easy hour 15 minutes each. Now I got two greens sold, and about a 8 or 9 golds and some purps from chesting.

Yeah, you miss out on the social element of the game, but I just care about getting what I want done, and H+H just does it better + faster for me. As stated:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormlord Alex

I don't particularly want to waste my precious time leading a bunch of half-wit morons through a mission I could've got done in 5 minutes with AI.

QFT.

Tozen · Aug 28, 2007, 08:19 PM // 20:19

I usually only use henchmen/heroes for several reasons:

1. I can go at the pace I want, go afk, and turn off the game for no reason without upsetting anyone.
2. I REALLY like designing team builds for me and my heroes with bars that compliment one another. That is where I get most of my fun now-a-days because I have mastered all of the skills that my profession (assassin) has to offer.
3. Henchmen don't rage.
4. Getting a team of henchmen takes 10 seconds. Getting a team of people can take ten or more minutes!

Easy choice really. If having the perfect team setup wasn't so important for this game I would probably PUG more, but as of now it just isn't worth it.

Apharot · Aug 28, 2007, 08:49 PM // 20:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by DergeDraconis

That is the absolute most self centered drivel I have ever heard. I'm sorry your 30 years old and decomposing, with one foot in the grave, and there's no one else around as old as you my distinguished grey haired sir...err wait, 25-30 is one of the main demographics of this game genre...you must just be high or just too smug to participate in social events. Sorry.

WTH. You took one sentence out of my entire paragraph and assumed that I was being a jerk. You also know nothing about me and made a LOT of assumptions as well. I'm 33, work for Qwest as a primary job, work teaching martial arts as a secondary job, never done drugs, and I am pretty down to earth. I am in great shape and not even close to being one foot in the grave, nor am I falling apart or decomposiong thanks to a gym membership mixed with the martial arts. The problems I have and worry about are FAR, and I mean FAR different than a teenage or early to mid 20's person, and do NOT fool yourself, they are a bigger group than the 25-30 demographic. So basically, what I am saying, is stop being an idiot and think. When people hang out with someone, they hang out with someone their own age. There are always exceptions, but the problems of the person 8 years and greater young than me are a world apart.

So next time my little wet behind the ears, bottle sucking kid, don't make an assumption about something or someone. Try critical thinking, you'll get along better in life.

Vinraith · Aug 28, 2007, 08:58 PM // 20:58

I never PUGged , even back when that meant just playing with dumbass henchmen. I've always either played solo or with real life friends.

revelation · Aug 28, 2007, 09:14 PM // 21:14

I always try to find experienced players to play with, if no guildies are available to come.. I find playing with real people is a lot more fun than playing alone and chatting along makes it more fun and faster, altho I use h/h too, when I'm just not in the mood of looking for people or I can't form/find a good group. I think it's all matter of personal taste

Dubug · Aug 28, 2007, 10:18 PM // 22:18

H/H are one of the reasons I like GW so much. I've been playing GW on and off since it originally came out, but really got into it when NF was released. I loved how I could create a full party and just roll. If I mess up or need to take a break to help the wife or kids, I can do that without having to worry about the other members of the party. I got through the missions in NF with no problem and also did the preview weekend for EOTN without any issues.

After playing WoW for a few years (did everything from 5 mans to 40 mans), I stopped playing a few months after the expansion hit. I was in a good guild that progressed well, it was just getting frustrating having to tie myself down for huge chunks of time whenever doing anything with 5+ people. Sure would have loved to have a few heroes or henches to play with and not have to worry about grouping with guildies unless I had the guaranteed time to spare.

Zubrowka · Aug 28, 2007, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Playing in PUGs is sort of like picking up woman in a bar: You fail most of the time and sometimes the experience could be downright unpleasant. But, that's where the excitement comes from.

Playing with henchmen is like, well, humping a mannequin: You score everytime and the mannequin won't give you attitude, but it just becomes a boring routine after a while.

Just my two cents.

Safer Saviour · Aug 29, 2007, 12:59 AM // 00:59

I want to like PuGs, I really do. I want it to be fun to pick up and play with random other people because y'know, it's an MMORGP and I like to meet people and enjoy shared interests (like gaming). However, in GW, mistakes aren't forgiven, disagreements aren't resolved and half the team chat throughout the mission/quest/etc. is 'Stop doing that you noob', 'FFS healers wtf you doing? Noobs' etc.

That being said around 7/10 of the groups I've been in have worked alright (still abusive and lacking in fun 9/10 times). I'm on the European servers and here, most of the people seem to have a clue about how to create a group that works decently. Lately though, I've become more experimental with my builds and I've also started to properly customise and arm my heroes and it's a lot more enjoyable to do than than be abused by some jacked up creep who spent half the time doing bugger all save for 'watching' his female ele dance. -sighs-

I'm very thankful for my guild and alliance.

Apharot · Aug 29, 2007, 02:39 AM // 02:39

I may try to PUG tonight and see what happens. I'm always nervous about getting some hardcore GW'er who's going to bitch at me non-stop though LOL

Darkside · Aug 29, 2007, 02:43 AM // 02:43

It's funny I wasn't going to even bother with the GWEN preview but a bunch of people from my alliance were going on and on about it and I remember reading that they were getting groups together. I thought to myself "Oh cool we can go through the game together." It lasted about 5 minutes. Soon as we entered the tunnels we got separated because certain people hadn't loaded yet and what not. Anyway, my point being I was in a party for GWEN for about 2 minutes of play time. Then I had to Hero / Hench it up. I was pretty disappointed because the only reason I had even bothered with the preview was because I thought I'd be playing with friends. Unfortunately, all they really cared about was getting through everything as quickly as possible.

The Great Al · Aug 29, 2007, 11:05 PM // 23:05

I see what some of you guys are saying, I mean we were trying to get a group for one of the dungeons..and we needed another nuker. The first guy was running dual attunes and had flare in his bar, the other guy (after still advertising for a nuker) was an air spike and insisted he couldn't/wouldn't run any other builds. However, we eventually got a great human group together, and stayed together for a few quests.

Evalbane · Aug 30, 2007, 02:18 AM // 02:18

This is the reason I have only been to FoW once. Nobody wants to pick up a ranger. I have beaten all three chapters, I am very flexible in my builds, I take orders well. I don't know how there are that many stupid people who can ruin it for everyone. I am not above dropping out of a group, but that is usually after it gets me killed for the third time at the same spot. I like to try to use PUGs for missions because someone usually knows what is going on. I will use H/H for quests because I like to wander.

As a person who would like to group more and I don't think I suck, I'm asking you to try and pick up at least one person at random.

jonfal · Aug 30, 2007, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Hey Al, didn't realize you posted here...then again I probably haven't for a year.

Anyways, I find the heroes and henchies, while somewhat annoying and taking more effort, are more intelligent and better than 99% of pug groups. Plus, in the time it takes to get a pug group together and screen them to make sure you don't have mes/necro with fast-casting MM skills, and making sure you don't have any Wa/Mos (I'm referring to the mentality of majority melee players, not just the build), you could have attempted and failed 10 times with heroes/henchies.

Just my opinion. I do however agree that it would be nice to find real groups forming more quickly...otherwise it's hard to build friendships or find other neat alliances or players.

That's one thing that A-Net never anticipated. They have attempted to make the game "solo-able", but that kills the need for a guild, other than PvP, and will eventually kill the game if it goes unchecked. I mean, can you really have "Guild Wars" without the "Guilds"?

bhavv · Aug 30, 2007, 03:27 AM // 03:27

Not meaning to spam or go off topic, but if like me you love playing H/H and hate pugs, check into these two threads:

7 heroes discussion

or

Better Henchies

The more people we have saying yay, the closer we get to having our perfect game

I do prefer playing with guildies / alliance as long as they can play the builds I give them. If they cant they have a tendancy to go and buy the skills so they can use them

I remember another story - I were on my monk playing a good ol' SoR prot in one of the mid NF missions. I joined a group led by an elly and as I were the only monk, she took her hero. I asked her to ping, and heres what I got:

[skill]Healing Burst[/skill][skill]healing breeze[/skill][skill]heal other[/skill][skill]jamei's gaze[/skill][skill]heal party[/skill][skill]protective spirit[/skill][skill]mend ailment[/skill] and a random res.

Granted I said let me take my monk hero or just change your hero to Mhenlo (for the love of god). Instead she just enters so I rage quit. That was followed up by a PM war of her believing her monks bar was fine and she wasnt going to listen to me cos I were a rage quit noob. I think that was the last time I ever pugged, and the only reason I did was because my monk is my secondary char and didnt have level 20 heroes yet.

The memories still haunt me.

Vanessa Dwager · Aug 30, 2007, 03:43 AM // 03:43

I was with my guildies and we were going to do frostmaws dungeon. We had a pretty balanced team filling up a slot with my Koss (whos pretty damn good) and anothers dunkoro. So we had like: two warriors, a SS, a MM, a couple ele's and two monks. Unfortunatly we couldn't make it past the first room without dieing horribly. So they said we needed 3 monks because there was absolutely no way unless we had 3 monks. I told them I ran with heros and henchmen and this is normally a breeze. My team usually consists of two warriors, two eles, a MM, an interrupt mesmer, and two monks usually healing and protection and I can beat anything with that team.

Which I did after my guildies decided to call it quits. I got 2 diamonds from that trip. I'm not against PUG's and I normally use them on regular missions.

Convulsing Crunchy · Aug 30, 2007, 03:52 AM // 03:52

I never party with random people anymore, because they all suck at GW and have no idea what they're doing.

Teddi · Aug 30, 2007, 04:13 AM // 04:13

I only grouped for missions, not quests, and since so far, it seems GW:ENs missions are integrated into quests, i don't group for them.