Curse

trialist · Nov 07, 2006, 08:28 AM // 08:28

If you know how to design your heroes skillbars, no pug will ever come close to your custom designed team. For one thing, they do whatever the hell you tell them to, like, "go left!", they will go "yes, boss" and go left, try that with a pug and you may get "F U, i'll go where i please, go <censored> yourself noobie!".

Also, find me a pug interrupter with the leet sauce reflexes of the ranger heroes or the mesmer hero and i'll gladly concede that pugs are better. Oh and what's even better is when you team with a guildie and go 6 heroes. Extreme easy mode for the win.

fivoroth · Nov 07, 2006, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domino

why did you buy a game that requires an internet connection? ... seriously... why not just play Oblivion or Gothic or something???

Because of its PvP.I play through each campaign only once and then GvG.

0mar · Nov 07, 2006, 09:17 AM // 09:17

Pugs are full of awful players who are stuck in their awful mindsets. I'd venture to say that a very large majority of pug players have zero clue of how to play the game, yet will profoundly expouse their viewpoint as being right.

No thanks.

Age · Nov 07, 2006, 10:57 AM // 10:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Theus

I'd just like to remind you that heroes are superior to other players.

Which also probably includes the OP.

I doubt[sp] that maybe you but not me.This entire game is based on coop and isn't 8 brains better than 1 to figure out a mission I would think so.These heros can't react as fast has human player can and if you play with heros long enough and decide to pvp it forget it.That is what missions are suppose to teach but like somone said we might as well make GW a offline single player game.When not playing my Monk I always look at health bars.

I would wage a full team of 1 player and Heros in GvG agianst a real 8 man team or even a 6 man team.

Xenrath · Nov 07, 2006, 11:39 AM // 11:39

Give it up Age, it's not worth it. Reading the majority of these posts, watching how MOST outposts and towns (in Europe anyway) few talk and not many want to team up anymore it's all too obvious at this moment in time the Single Player mentality is prevailing.

Contrary to some opinions, friends list/guildies and "options" is not the real answer to the decline in coop play, because people are at different stages of the game and often using bots themselves, so even less inclination to team up with anyone. So the players who do want to team up are having a harder and harder time of it, and themselves resorting to using bots. Which in turn makes it even more difficult, can you see the pattern here?

Honestly, I don't know why folks didn't just stick to single player games instead of apparently successfully turning PvE into a mostly single player game. Why come to a multiplayer online game in order to play it essentially single player mode? Perhaps that kind of person would have been better off sticking to offline games like Oblivion, or playing offline Quake/UT with bots, Halflife 2, or NWN in single player offline mode and the like. Stick to using MSN/IRC if you need the chatrooms, do the online gaming world a service and stay away, with your bots

Much as I like Nightfall over Factions in terms of content and stuff, I bought GW originally as a multiplayer game, that aspect of which largely is in decline from what I've experienced (not counting PvP, am not interested in that). If this continues, which it has every sign of doing so currently, I'm hoping another decent multiplayer game turns up; am currently looking into NWN2.

The Silver Star · Nov 07, 2006, 11:52 AM // 11:52

Well i personally stopped roughly 70% of the way through Nightfal lbecause when i said "Looking for (what i needed here)" i basically got back "lol z0mg noob use heroes you noob". i thought this was supposed to be a team game? Not "lets go play with my Talkora on this mission its so funny"

Where is the team element in the game now in HA and PvE it feels more like an offline MMO.

Cebe · Nov 07, 2006, 12:01 PM // 12:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lyphen

I did Thunderhead Keep last night. A monk left because he didn't get a gold.

Tell me why I shouldn't use Heroes instead.

That's brilliant! That has to get the award for the worst excuse ever for leaving half way through a game!

Quite...my view is Heroes > PuG. Which appears to be the general feeling here. I went with a PuG for the penultimate mission and we...failed 3 times. I also went with a PuG for the final mission which we passed with Masters. Those are the only two missions I used real people for. I notice Canthan quests are getting worse also. I got my Elonian monk to Tahnnakai yesterday, with my brother's Paragon and we went in with a human team. We got pwnd because everyone wanted to rugh around and aggro everything they could see. When we failed and were sent back to the outpost my brother and I just said "yea, good luck and all...heroes ftw". We took Heroes and got Masters first time.

Oh god...Aborstone next...Heroes it is then!

Esprit · Nov 07, 2006, 12:10 PM // 12:10

My heroes and henchmen will stay in one place when I tell them to. I don't need to frantically scribble a white line across the minimap to stop my hero/hench group.

My hero/hench group won't kick me out of a mission group because the monk complained about having too many of a certain profession.

My hero/hench group won't care if I afk for an hour while in an instance.

I don't have to worry about impatient players causing additional aggro because they have some burning need to get somewhere.

I will take a Guild group over a hero/hench group anyday, but I will hero/hench before trying a PUG.

bungusmaximus · Nov 07, 2006, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Quite a bad thing actually, mostly playing with PUG's is more fun for me and less stress. Its hard enough already to control 1 character, let alone 4 simultaneously. Realm of torment missions went quite well with a PUG, i beat 3 pretty hard quests in a row and i had fun too. I think heroes are great when a desired profession is hard to come by (I especially LOVE my monk heroes, since theyre smart and energy-efficient) but I mainly like teaming up most of all. I hope this Hero-mania is just temporarily because I really want to play with real ppl again. Of course I agree with most people here that an occasional jerk is inevitable, but theyre a minority really IMO. I mostly learn a lot from real players that heroes can't tell me. And then theres always the problem that I can't get a good build yet for most heroes I get. What fun is there having a warrior when I only unlocked 6 skills for him. I can make a decent monk, an ele and a ranger but that's all. It's gonna take quite a lot of AB games before I unlocked every skill in the game...

unmatchedfury · Nov 07, 2006, 12:20 PM // 12:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Silver Star

Well i personally stopped roughly 70% of the way through Nightfal lbecause when i said "Looking for (what i needed here)" i basically got back "lol z0mg noob use heroes you noob". i thought this was supposed to be a team game? Not "lets go play with my Talkora on this mission its so funny"

Where is the team element in the game now in HA and PvE it feels more like an offline MMO.

I wish it did. unfortunantly your forced to play with others, woudl be so much nicer if you could solo all but end game content. and even then with a little skill end game content would be possible. Unfortuantly since this game has no charactor scaling whatso ever its not possible. so mass t eams of computers, 11 yearolds, and if your lucky friends, are neccecary for even the most mundane things.

to make it worse team play isnt actually rewarded. you get less drops in team play... doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

Braggi · Nov 07, 2006, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domino

I've played through all 3 games with my friends, ...

It just baffles the mind to hear these sociopathic tendencies emerge with people proclaiming how it's so awesome to play through the entire game with henchmen. If you don't want to play with people, ...

It just makes no sense to me... maybe I'm missing something here, but I didn't buy Guild Wars for the single-player experience. If I wanted that I'd be playing a different game... that's just me though.

Hm, maybe I miss something here too, because that rather sounds like you bring your own friends and don't have to socialize a lot with random people... That's sociopatic too, just on another level... Joining good guilds is just as difficult for people with limited time, as it needs some luck and usually conscious effort from you and the guild to make a match.

Heroes bring freedom, agreed. At a time I jumped through 9-11 european LA districts to find partners for the "get Olias" mission, and just one fast discouraged taker. Did it with leveled up heroes in the end, not for want of trying to find breathing players...

If I play, I want to play, not beg for groups and waste a lot of time in outposts. So I find or create one, great. Otherwise I have alternatives now.
For leisurely play even small groups often have a different pace than you have, be it more slow, more fast, more risky or more risk averse. So especially when I try new approaches or for my personal excessive goals (aka titles) I rather go alone with heroes. There's alsothe guild/ alliance chat on the side when I feel like company, even when playing alone atm.

garethporlest18 · Nov 07, 2006, 01:17 PM // 13:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eilsys

Admittedly, I doubt I'll ever PUG again with heroes... but I know a good number of the people on my friends' list came from fun PUGs.

I'm glad that I can avoid the 9/10 awful groups you come across, but some of the best experiances in GW I've had were with them

Well it helps that you're not the best player out there so don't run into many people worse than you!

I love you DH no worries. (as a friend sicko).

As for me I do both. I hate henchmen bad and only use PUGS if Heroes fail me. But I've been using Hero's the whole time with henchies, and that's what i used to beat NF. I also had to use henchies to do the THK bonus. Boy that was fun.

Hench healers are suck 1/2 of the time for me. They either are ace and I'm proud of them or they suck so bad it makes me want to kill them, their families ship them off to Antarctica and freeze their loins. NO TAI YOU DON'T USE SIGNET OF DEVOTION ON ME WITH RUST ON YOU DAMN YOU! *cough*

I do FoW with a lot or did when I was going for my FoW. I farmed about 110 shards so I was PuGing a lot. I got some really great groups with nice people that co-oped very well. Then I got crap. It's good it's bad but doesn't ruin GW for me as a whole as I'm a selfish person and only do things for myself. SO other people tend not to ruin things for me..well sometimes but not all the time. It's usually myself if it happens.

Prospero · Nov 07, 2006, 01:28 PM // 13:28

Heh. I bought GW because I didn't have to interect with other players to get things done. I play odd hours sometimes and I don't want to PUG and most of my guildies are in another time-zone. So the addition of Heroes is a Godsend. Anyway, the content is out-pacing the population and so we NEED Heroes.

Amorfati87 · Nov 07, 2006, 01:51 PM // 13:51

I PUG'd every single stupid mission in chapter 2 and I do mean stupid mission. I spent most of my time yelling at my computer because people do the most silly things and think they know everything. The rest of my time was spent spamming for groups and not being taken because I was a Ranger or an Assassin or a Rit or well whatever it was that they decided they didn't want that day.

I played the elite mission The Deep, and I will tell you that I never was in a group that had 12 left by the end of it. Somebody always drops, somebody always aggro's, somebody always goes AFK, somebody always tells somebody else they are an idiot, or well I'm sure we all get the idea.

So PUGS? No spank you...

Thank GOD for heroes!

Oh, btw, why do the people who love playing with heroes have to find a new game? Why can't we play the stupid game like we want to? Obviously ANET doesn't agree with you since they gave us Heroes and Henchmen to begin with.

EternalTempest · Nov 07, 2006, 02:07 PM // 14:07

@OP - I prefer human players and love pugs (good and bad)

But I too have found Hero/Hench groups are better then pugs...

I try and find human pugs.. but in NF that's hard to find 8 human players. At best 4/5 then the rest are hero's.

One mission stands out the floating temple in the mirror of lyssa. Joined a group, leader shouting, rage quitting, mission is impossible. Grab my hero's / henchmen... get expert with an un-optimized hero group on 1st solo try.

I still will seek out human players 1st.. but if the District is dead or it's a mission where I can't find good help (will try a few pugs before), it's hero/henchmen for me.

trankle · Nov 07, 2006, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenrath

Honestly, I don't know why folks didn't just stick to single player games instead of apparently successfully turning PvE into a mostly single player game. Why come to a multiplayer online game in order to play it essentially single player mode? Perhaps that kind of person would have been better off sticking to offline games like Oblivion, or playing offline Quake/UT with bots, Halflife 2, or NWN in single player offline mode and the like. Stick to using MSN/IRC if you need the chatrooms, do the online gaming world a service and stay away, with your bots

Hi. I think you and the "go play Oblivion" set are forgetting a simple fact: GW is not a multi-player Oblivion. Nor is it an online Quake. It's GW.

If you lack the ability to differentiate games from one another, and bought GW for the sole reason that it's multi-player, then more power to you. I bought it, and keep buying it, because I like it as a specific game. I like the classes. I like the skills. I like the setting.

Can we please stop using the ridiculous argument that GW is simply a mulit-player clone of single-player games? Thanks.

Kerus Tel Veren · Nov 07, 2006, 02:34 PM // 14:34

People online are horrible. They really, really are. It is a trusim that without controls of some sort in place (moderation, strict barrier of entry, something else), the larger a community grows, the worse the quality and caliber of person becomes.

This is true of every mmo and the bulk of online games out there, and perhaps more true for GW because it attracts competitive players (who are, by and large, more high strung than players more interested in exploring and enjoying the world or missions) and it has no monthly fee.

It is true for most online forums as well - generally the smaller, carefully moderated, tightly focused discussion groups tend to be the most friendly, interesting, and insightful - until they become large and unmanageable. Then they either adopt strict moderation policies, or otherwise restrict access (take a look at the SA forums for an example of a huge but still thriving community... with amazingly harsh moderation AND a pay-to-talk entry barrier). If not, they tend to collapse under their own weight and either fragment or die completely.

Some mmos burn out and fade due to really atrocious gameplay, technical issues, support, or other problems. Guild Wars most certainly does not have those issues (I still thinking the tech they have in place is amazing, and I've played it on and off since beta with few or no problems that I can recall), and it is blessed with some astonishing artwork and world design.

But the community - the quality of the community is, unfortunately, not tied to the quality of the game. And indeed, as the popularity of the game grows, so too does its user base, and the average level of expertise drops - no barrier of entry, and an increasingly large amount of information, knowledge, and skill to absorb before a player can become truly proficient all cause serious problems; particularly when previous in-game learning barriers become circumvented and corrupted.

Witness the growth of running, until it becomes difficult to simply get a group to do a mission or an area 'for real'. Perhaps done initially by bored vets leveling pve alts, it eventually becomes the 'norm' for a large chunk of people, who start to expect that sort of treatment (and behavior) from others.

Similarly, genuinely challenging missions for new players are incredibly hard to work through in an environment where the population around the mission consists of either veterans (who know what to do, have already done it, expect you to know the same, and will be annoyed if you don't), or incredibly poor players who were rushed to the location, and are, in essence, completely new players (who will quit at the first sign of difficulty, whine relentlessly, and look for someones coattails to pull them through to the next sticking point).

Guild Wars is especially bizarre in that it has a little of something of everyone - it has a vast world to explore, it has a series of storyline quests to tackle, it has incredibly competitive pvp, and it has a strange mix of very easy and very very difficult pve content. It's an rpg, but it plays like an action game at times. You can spend weeks or months building a pve character, or you can, as a brand new player, buy a pvp unlock and never touch the campaigns.

The result of that eclectic blend of possibilities available to the prospective player is pretty obvious - you get a really eclectic blend of players. You get ex-quake clanners out for blood in GvG battles. You get card game players who like the Magic-esque feel of the skills. You get single player rpg fans. You get mmo fans. You get really young kids, you get older married couples.

It is no surprise, none at all, that pugs are a horrible experience for many people - the odds of you getting matched up with people who have similar tastes, similar expectations, and similar desires from a group are so bad, it's amazing that you can meet cool people at all.

Really, the next big jump for GW (and mmos in general really) isn't adding Heroes so you can skirt the issue entirely by playing online solitaire, it's adding the tools in-game to match compatible players in a group - and by compatible, I'm not talking about character class :P Think internet dating for online gaming nerds instead of a lfg window.

Anyway, that went off on a tangent.

Back to the topic - Heroes absolutely are a replacement for other players in coop. Why? Because I play Guild Wars to enjoy myself, and grouping with random PuGs is somewhere between the 7th and 9th layers of hell in terms of enjoyment for me.

I consider this to be unfortunate, as nothing beats the fun of playing with a group of like-minded people, but locating them in the seething cesspool of genetic rejections at Lion's Arch 1 isn't happening any time soon.

'lfg' in-game is a dire tool of last resort. Group with friends, make new friends on forums who seem sane, get in a guild that seems to have cool members... or group with Heroes and Henchmen, who are more likely to get you loot than they are to give you an ulcer.

Gun Pierson · Nov 07, 2006, 02:42 PM // 14:42

@Keros: I really enjoyed your post, well thought out and interesting.

@ OP: Heros are way better than henchies or most real players. They listen and stick around. You can give them the builds you want and even use their skill bar. In other words they're an extension of yourself. In the right hands they're really imba, seriously.

The downside from a social point of view is that people don't need to pug. You alrdy see this in most nightfall towns, silence. Except for the second last mission. I also notice less sellers and buyers but that can be because most are playing the campaign or are looking for exploits to farm, chestrun etc. It just feels a bit strange, a bit that ghost town feeling.

Ember010 · Nov 07, 2006, 02:50 PM // 14:50

I am loving heroes! Especially because im a huge animal lover lol & pretty much all my characters have either had a ranger 2nd prof to start out with or are rangers. Not very good for PvP but still.

My newest love has been giving the heroes charm animal. All of my heroes have a lioness, and I have a lion. Although theres only 4 I love going about in a pack!

Oo And apply poison is my new found love lol. Random but yeh!

wilson · Nov 07, 2006, 03:05 PM // 15:05

I don't think that heroes will change the game that much. You have always been able to hench your way through most of the coops, heroes don't change that. Of course this got a bit easier with heroes, but it hasn't changed the fact that you have always been able to hench your way through the campaigns. There have always been only a couple of coops that were very hard to hench, nothing new to that. PUGs were only necessary on a couple of occasions and they still are. I think the things that really improved is the way you can play with henchmen now. You can assign targets, make them hold certain points on the maps, call a target for your henchmen, than just focus yourself on another target. I f you could assign targets to henchies, there would be no difference between those and heroes imho.

And for buying weapons and runes for heroes, I just don't see the point. I would never spend my hard earned money on equipping henchmen. The good drops I get I will keep giving them away to my guildies/ friends or just sell it if no one needs it. Heroes are just henchmen.