Curse

BlueSummers · May 10, 2006, 07:37 PM // 19:37

Factions; Assassins and Henchmen.- a letter to developers.

Brief: Discusses saturated classes in Factions such as ritualists and assassins. These classes have difficulty finding groups and rely on henchmen; which are dumb. Consider updating the AI.

Gentlemen,

I would like to point out a major flaw in Guild Wars; henchmen. Currently, henchmen are really the bane of my game play, and it’s rather annoying. Let me first phrase the problem for you; and then suggest a possible solution.

I’ve been playing GW for some time. I liked prophecies, and I just purchased Factions. Now the issue is that while playing the Prophecies campaign, the henchmen were dumb. Not really really dumb, but just kind of not…smart. This was fine, since they could augment a group and pull their weight at about 70% of what a human being could do.

Unfortunately, Factions has brought a new element into the equation. A lot of people, like me, bought Factions hoping to play the new characters; Assassins and Ritualists. Unfortunately, there’s now a huge proportion of the Factions population being these two classes because they’re new and fun to play. This means barely anyone wants to group with these two (especially assassins because people play them badly), so you are forced to group almost exclusively with Henchmen.

This leads to the game being excruciatingly hard. I’m talking like FoW. 24/7. With henchmen- kind of hard. It bothers me because I bought Factions hoping for an enjoyable experience, and it really hasn’t cracked up to be one yet. Yet. Right now I’m beating my head against a wall because I can’t get anything done. The henchmen seem to have gotten stupider since Prophecies;

1. Henchmen follow protocol at the expense of common sense.
a. Example; if most of the party dies, and only the archer and healer are left, the healer will rez the ritualist first. Always. This makes sense because the ritualist can help in healing. The henchmen doesn’t realize that the spiritualist died in a pack of deadly mobs, and will promptly run to her death; ruinning the mission.
2. Henchmen follow a grossly flawed protocol.
a. Example; the henchmen will cluster around me and wait for their health/energy to recharge to full before rezzing dead party members. This can take a while, and just serves to waste time. Anyone who’s played with a pack of henchies can attest to this kind of dumb behavior. If anyone should be rezzed immediately, it’s the critical thinking human.
3. Henchmen are uncontrollable.
a. Henchmen follow you until you don’t want to be followed. If I’m going to charge through a pack of mobs, I want the henchies to stick close, and don’t get locked up into battle. But they almost invariably do, and get themselves killed and rack up DP. However, if I want them to take the point and get agro, they faithfully stay by my side. Great. =\

This game issue is really ruining it in the short run for me, and I’d presume many other players that are being assassins right now. I therefore humbly suggest that Henchmen be made smarter to counter this problem. Consider if there was some way of entering at least 3 basic commands to somehow control henchmen;

Follow Me
This command could override henchmen protocol and they will follow me or the team. No attacking other targets. No stupid running around. They stick to you like glue and don’t pull extra agro or otherwise cause catastrophe.

Stand Ground
A simple command that will have henchmen assume a defensive or offensive posture, but stand their ground. They don’t go anywhere, regardless of where I go or what I do. This would be wonderful in situations where rangers can pull agro and drag monsters back into henchmen. Or, in the case where someone needs to be protected, one could station henchmen in one spot to prevent them from blindly following command #1 or their built-in protocol.

Attack My Target
Finally, it would be nice to actually direct concerted attacks. While henchmen already do “attack my target” they only attack what I’m currently attacking. It would be nice to assign them attacking one target, while I go for another. With this, they wail on one target until it dies or they do. It would certainly help some situations where the henchies occupy one group, while the human goes for the healer/hero or something.

Now I don’t know how to implement these ideas; that’s for game designers. These are just suggestions that would make dealing with henchmen a lot easier. I believe some change is deeply needed, because right now the game isn’t fun for people playing saturated classes that can’t find groups. Please consider these fixes, or at least think of some new ones that will alleviate this unique situation.

Truly yours,
--BlueSummers

Markaedw · May 10, 2006, 08:00 PM // 20:00

The above requests for hench control can't be that hard, any MM will tel you, minions do that already. I have many times sent minions to a mob that I didn't want to fight and walked away. Al tough they do go after anything in my agro bubble.