Curse

mazey vorstagg · Apr 25, 2007, 05:30 AM // 05:30

/signed

I don't like playing withh real players. Purely becuase of the fact that I have to go afk for about 5 minutes very regularly during my gameplay. Finding a solid half hour is hard. Therefore I'd like to take 7 heroes all the time, not just hard mode.

trobinson97 · Apr 25, 2007, 06:09 AM // 06:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by mazey vorstagg

/signed

I don't like playing withh real players. Purely becuase of the fact that I have to go afk for about 5 minutes very regularly during my gameplay. Finding a solid half hour is hard. Therefore I'd like to take 7 heroes all the time, not just hard mode.

This is very true. I have kids. So when I sit down to play, I am often not sitting very long. I am up and down, back and away and I know how frustrating that is for the players with no lives and can sit undisturbed for minutes and hours at a time. Even though I have a really good guild/alliance, I rarely party with them because it's just not fair to them that I might get up at any minute for however long I might be gone.

That said, I don't have any problems with the henchies. They aren't as smart as they could be, but I've gotten up to D'Allesio Seaboard with 3 areas vanquished with nothing but them and my three heroes. Still, I would like to be able to add more heroes, and be able to go in with a nice group build.

bungusmaximus · Apr 25, 2007, 06:18 AM // 06:18

EVen if the feature would be available I personally wouldn't use it in hard mode. Micromanaging 7 heroes is actually blooming hard. I had missions where I was flagging people more then using my own skills. I cant speak for people with little time on their hands, but I liked to play with humans again a lot and most people I teamed up with were good players too

.

strcpy · Apr 25, 2007, 06:26 AM // 06:26

This has been discussed to death and in the end there are three classes of players.

One wants to PUG, heroes were the death of them. Were it up to them then you probably wouldn't even be able to play with a full party of hench. You will hear wonderful things like the game is "multi-player" therefore you have to play with other people and AI ruins the game. Of course, that ignores a whole large element that plays the game - they aren't going to get the whole teeming masses wanting to PUG no matter what.

You have the second class that dislikes PUG's. They may have a variety of reasons - usually time commitments and are generally in the "casual" category. For them 8 heroes would really make the game one of the all time greats, you could pop on and play any area at any time for any amount of time (even if you have 15 minutes to play). They are going to have some missions that are near impossible to get masters/bonus or some titles that are near impossible and having 8 heroes isn't going to solve that.

Third group is mainly guild play and they do not care at all. They already have it all - AI for short strange periods of play, organized human groups when needed. True for both PvE and PvP and the only group that gets to truly play the whole game.

I fall into the second group, 8 heroes would make this rank as my all time favorite game. IMO if you want a constant group of humans to play with - join a guild. It's not hard, there are many. I like being able to choose, and I normally choose heroes/hench - always have and always will. But, Anet tries to balance between them and we get what we have today. It doesn't make either side *too* angry nor does it make either one happy. I'll accept it and understand it even though I do not like it. I just wish we had a few more choices in the hench - a few missions in Factions hit about the right balance to me. While I still could not get the whole team build I wanted I wasn't *that* far off. I was never in the position of thinking "crap, I have one other slot - who isn't going to screw me over" which is the normal thought on the last member for most of the three chapters.

I suspect that when the player base shrinks to some point then it will happen - until then Anet is going to push at least a two human party. Personally I think they would have more happy players than unhappy with 5, 6, 7, or 8 heroes allowed, but I do not think it will happen no matter the number of threads created.

Edge Martinez · Apr 25, 2007, 06:40 AM // 06:40

/not signed.

I'm obviously not seeing the bad AI you guys are. Hero's are 50 times better than Menhlo, Lina, etc. in my opinion. And as much as I don't care if we were allowed to have 7 hero's instead of 3, I just realize that hard mode will have lost alot of it's challenge if it happens.

Arduin · Apr 25, 2007, 06:40 AM // 06:40

Hard mode isn't hard because of the monsters, it's because of the horrible hero-ai. Especially the monks who will just be standing afk-like, letting the party bleed to death during a fight. Just grab the hench-monks, you'll be fine.

/notsigned

Master Sword Keeper · Apr 25, 2007, 06:50 AM // 06:50

Party size to ten and let me use all of my heros.

Hench ftl...they're too doey..

/signed

arcanemacabre · Apr 25, 2007, 06:52 AM // 06:52

The reason people tend to find heroes worse than henchies is mainly because the heroes just don't like the build you're giving them. The key is to realize what skills, and sometimes what combination of skills the AI has a hard time with. You can't just slap a great build, no matter how awesome it is, onto a hero and then bitch at it because it's not doing this, or not doing that.

The henchies are generally better only because they are specifically coded to use that build they are using. They've been tweaked many times since release, and each time was small fixes in how they use this skill, or that skill in conjuction with that other skill, etc. The heroes have access to so many, it would take ages to make them work right with every combination. You're going to have bugs with the heroes, and we need to learn to accept that.

So, each time you go in with Dunky, and you think to yourself "Damn him! He's just standing there doing nothing, and I'm sitting at 25% life, and he's got full energy!" Chances are, he's confused, for some reason. Tweak the skillbar, find out what skill or combination of skills are causing the brain fart. Most people will just give up, kick Dunky, and add Alesia saying "At least she doesn't just sit there!". Of course, Alesia has 2 years of experience with her skills...

Regardless, I'm on the fence on this. I can see the argument about "This is hard mode, it's supposed to be hard!" despite how redundant that is. I can also see how having 4 more heroes is not that much different than 4 henchies for the average player. Now, the more hardcore player who has near or at UAS, and many ideas for that exploiting build for that one particular area where they will simply tear through it with their 7 uber-heroes... yeah, don't really see that as an issue, honestly. So maybe I'm more pro-7 heroes...

Lord Natural · Apr 25, 2007, 06:53 AM // 06:53

What's the point of hard mode if you have advantages over normal mode?

Hey here's a cool idea for hard mode - Let us have the same fast casting, attack speed boost and level increase as the creatures.

nekopowa · Apr 25, 2007, 07:52 AM // 07:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by SAQ

I think the chance is slim, and I don't like the idea.

It doesn't make sense, why don't you just suggest a party size to be 10 instead of 8?

Like many others have said, HARD MODE is suppose to be hard! If you can't beat it with henchmens or heros, then try human players or don't try it at all. Get better, that's all I can say

If most other players would know what they're doing maybe pugging wouldn't be so hated.

Lauryn · Apr 25, 2007, 08:08 AM // 08:08

I don't have nightfall so I don't have access to heros and all of the nightfall skills, yet I'm still perfectly capable of using henchmen to vanquish areas - you just have to manually remember to move them out of AoE spells with the flag (Perdition rock + all those damn meteor showers hitting for 100dmg each = annoyingly fun

)

So yeh, max party size is fine, I don't really see much difference with heros to henchmen (I have partied with my friends heros) except you can customise their skills and what not so for me

/notsigned

Numa Pompilius · Apr 25, 2007, 08:20 AM // 08:20

I really don't see why you guys are so critical to the idea.

All-hero teams means that you can create real team builds, rather than four-player-build-plus-two-hench-monks-and-Sogolon.

And to those who say Henches are as good or better than Heros... Get real.
Henches have skills from one profession, most of them have 6, not 8, skills, and many of them don't have an elite (or if they have one it's a silly one, e.g. the warriors have Charge!). And they have the same AI.
7 heroes *would* make hard-mode much, much, easier. Arguing otherwise is just plain silly.

And before someone say I don't know how to use henches: I hench-wayed all of prophecies and factions, and got the Defender title, before there were any heroes.

I can see two main reasons to not allow the use of unlimited heroes:
1) it'd make the standard campaign too easy.
2) it'd kill the PUGs.

Gaia_Hunter · Apr 25, 2007, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

The reason people tend to find heroes worse than henchies is mainly because the heroes just don't like the build you're giving them. The key is to realize what skills, and sometimes what combination of skills the AI has a hard time with. You can't just slap a great build, no matter how awesome it is, onto a hero and then bitch at it because it's not doing this, or not doing that.

The henchies are generally better only because they are specifically coded to use that build they are using. They've been tweaked many times since release, and each time was small fixes in how they use this skill, or that skill in conjuction with that other skill, etc. The heroes have access to so many, it would take ages to make them work right with every combination. You're going to have bugs with the heroes, and we need to learn to accept that.

So, each time you go in with Dunky, and you think to yourself "Damn him! He's just standing there doing nothing, and I'm sitting at 25% life, and he's got full energy!" Chances are, he's confused, for some reason. Tweak the skillbar, find out what skill or combination of skills are causing the brain fart. Most people will just give up, kick Dunky, and add Alesia saying "At least she doesn't just sit there!". Of course, Alesia has 2 years of experience with her skills...
..

Not really. While there are some skills the heroes cant handle, like energy drain, people are complaining mostly, although they make some different skill usage options in NM an in HM, is that heroes woht move in hard mode.

In NM, if you set an hero to offensive, he will attack and stay in line with you or in front of you. A defensive hero will stay in line or slighty back. A passive will stay clearly back.

In hard mode, all will stay in front of you. If you want them to fall back, you have to order them too.

In normal mode, caster heroes or heroes in passive behaviour will try to flee a melee chaser, and all will try to scatter from AoE.

In Hardmode they just wont move. The ones that actually move are those set to offensive, and if you are a caster and move slightly back, the hero immediatly stop attacking and drop back a bit.

Thats why people complain about. Not only the enemy got stronger, your allies got dumber.

And many people enjoy playing in pairs. Brothers, cousins, friends, husband and wife. They could play all the game ony the 2/3 of them plus their heroes.

Apparently, Anet decided that solo play is a downside of this game, while some people (dunno if a majority or a minority) find it an Ace of GW.

arcanemacabre · Apr 25, 2007, 09:05 AM // 09:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaia_Hunter

In hard mode, all will stay in front of you. If you want them to fall back, you have to order them too.

In normal mode, caster heroes or heroes in passive behaviour will try to flee a melee chaser, and all will try to scatter from AoE.

In Hardmode they just wont move. The ones that actually move are those set to offensive, and if you are a caster and move slightly back, the hero immediatly stop attacking and drop back a bit.

Well, I have noticed that. That is true. However, I haven't noticed much of a difference between heores and henchies as far as that behaviour goes.

I got to a point where I as a warrior would just flag my heroes to just outside of battle, then rush in. They did a lot better when they had a specific point to converge on. Maybe they made hardmode AI in a way that they won't perform right unless you flag them? I dunno.

Numa Pompilius · Apr 25, 2007, 10:25 AM // 10:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaia_Hunter

In normal mode, caster heroes or heroes in passive behaviour will try to flee a melee chaser, and all will try to scatter from AoE.

In Hardmode they just wont move.

That's just not true. Caster heroes and caster henches do not get out of AoE spells. Go to any enemy that casts Maelstrom or Chaos Storm or Meteor Shower and see your henches/heroes walk slowly back and forth inside the AoE. The hero/hench ai is buggy wrt AoE spells, and equally so in both normal and hard mode.

Also, while they do kite, I'm wondering if you guys aren't mistaking the change in MONSTER ai for a change in HENCH/HERO ai.
The monster ai for normal mode was _downgraded_ with the introduction of hard mode: in normal mode mobs now wont scatter as much from AoE, wont chase kiting party members, and will concentrate on one team member instead of attacking several at once.
This was made to make NORMAL mode easier.

In Hard mode the AI of both henches/heroes and monsters are the same as before.

Zedd Kun · Apr 25, 2007, 10:28 AM // 10:28

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10145685

freekedoutfish · Apr 25, 2007, 10:33 AM // 10:33

Usually I would be the first person to defend heroes and agree to let us use a full party of them.

However, thats only in normal mode because heroes are required and important.

In normal mode its harder to find PUGs, and because completing the game in NM is a necessity, then we need alternatives. Heroes are that alternative and it would be better to have a full team of them in normal mode to help complete the game.

In Hard Mode I think PUGs are better, and heroes are less important.

Hard mode isnt a necessity because youve already completed the game. Its just something else to do. Heroes arent a necessity because you can take longer finding PUGs and doing the missions.

Plus the difficulty of Hard Mode requires human intuition and reactions. I think Hard Mode should be more PUG orientated and stay that way.

You can almost be assured someone in hardmode is going to have some idea what their doing, so you can be more confident about using humans.

/signed at letting them use full heroe parties in normal mode.
/not signed at letting them use full heroes in Hard Mode.

Its hard for a reason, and I think Hard Mode is helping to re-introduce PUGing.

(Anyone whos read my views on PUGs will be gasping at that fact I just wrote that.)

Draikin · Apr 25, 2007, 10:34 AM // 10:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

I can see two main reasons to not allow the use of unlimited heroes:
1) it'd make the standard campaign too easy.
2) it'd kill the PUGs.

1) Whether or not it would be easier depends on your ability to analyze hero AI and get the most out of it, so why not reward the players that dedicate their time into buying equipment and finding the right build for their heroes. People who don't want to do that can still use henches, PuGs or guild teams.
2) Even though a lot of people come up with this argument to vote against the use of 7 heroes, I completely disagree that it would kill PUGs. People aren't going to invite random players because they can't use 7 heroes, they'll just complete the group with henches. What does happen is that people start a PUG and can't find enough players so they use heroes to complete the group instead, and that won't change.

And the hench AI really was bugged in HM, they just stood there when they were being attacked. I just tested this again and it seems they do kite now but I have no idea when this was changed or if the bug is just random. Odd.

arcanemacabre · Apr 25, 2007, 10:41 AM // 10:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

However, thats only in normal mode. In normal mode its harder to find PUGs, or nice players, or experienced players.

I dunno, man... I think you have that backwards. What if I decide "Hey, think I'm gonna try Hard Mode Sanctum Cay today."? Guess what, it's going to take me hours to get a group to do that particular mission. I'm at the mercy of what anyone else wanting to do hard mode wants to do, or taking heroes/finding at least one person and take heroes.

So you're suggesting a full team of heroes, where it's not needed, and half team where it is needed? Yeah, let's complicate things even more.

SotiCoto · Apr 25, 2007, 10:43 AM // 10:43

Meh.
I'll make this short.

#1. Fix Hero AI in Hard Mode. It should be at least as smart as in Normal Mode if not moreso....

#2. Full team of 7 heroes should be allowed in BOTH Normal Mode and Hard Mode... Picking between the two, given the way it is implemented, would just add unnecessary complication to the coding. If we're allowed to fill the entire party with heroes irrespective of location or difficulty then party structure and tactics become far more manageable... Afterall... certain areas / situations have certain effects that every party-member is subject to and ideally needs to compensate for. If my Sousuke is spamming Greater Conflagration then I want the option of giving my entire party fire resistance... for instance.

v_v;

O'course I don't fool myself into thinking for an instant that either will actually get sorted as I'd like.