Remove Hero Req for Hard Mode Missions in Nightfall, and give flags for NPCs

The need to take Heroes on certain Elonian missions is really not fair in hard mode. Remember that it is said by Anet that "You can use Heroes and Hench in hard mode but we don't guarantee success."

Since success with Heroes is not guaranteed in hard mode, that makes it totally unfair to be forced to use Heroes in hard mode in Nightfall missions that require them.

For example, on Jokanur Diggings being forced to take Melonni is a really weak link in that party already. Then if the player character is a Dervish himself, he is forced to have his party pigeonholed into an extremely weak setup of 50% of his 4 man party being limited to the Dervish class. This is an untenable situation in hard mode, and unbalances the game against the Dervish player for that mission in hard mode.

The other thing is that NPC allies who must survive need to be given flags like Heroes/Hench have. Ie: Kormir, Rurik, Mhenlo, Togo etc. etc. It's completely unfair to lose missions due to not being able to control their often-ridiculous Leeroy behaviour. In Jokanur Diggings Kormir even attacks the Sunspear ghosts that she is not supposed to according to the bonus objective, and there is no way to make her stop. I was busy frantically complaining at my allies to stop hitting the Sunspear ghost, only to then realize that it was Kormir doing it! The resulting confusion led me to dragging Kormir away as fast as I could before the bonus ghost got killed by Kormir, but my party didn't follow in time and hence we all got wiped a few seconds later. Mission failures for reasons like these should not happen. Likewise Kormir is never ever able to stop aggroing anything, even when it's time to retreat because the whole party is about to die. Kormir will be lagging behind the retreating party, getting killed thus causing mission failure for the whole party. Hard mode is supposed to be based on a player's skill at the game, not a player's luck at avoiding having the NPC ally cause mission failure for a dumb reason. Giving NPC allies flags would make hard mode be much more fair and balanced.

This would be the "hard" part about hard mode. Success isn't guaranteed with human players either. If success was certain no matter what, you could as easily play the game with "move on" and "kill" buttons.

Yes, you will lose missions. It also may be harder with Heroes/Hench. Sorry, but that is the point. It is not impossible to beat any mission/explorable area, though, that is according to the Dev play testing.

And if you could do missions without Hero-requirements or flag vital NPCs in Hard Mode, you would have Normal Mode players arguing for the same thing or else ANet is "catering to the Grinding PvEr."

Doesn't matter if normal mode players would complain about it, give it to them too then, no big deal.

Despite the tests it seems pretty clear that hard mode was not balanced for all classes in all situations. I'm pretty sure that very few players - if anyone - is gonna beat Jokanur's Diggings in Hard Mode with two melee fighting Dervishes (ie: playing the class normally with it's intended function). And even if they do it will be way harder for them to do that than it will be for players of any other class who are only forced to take one Dervish; which is a big imbalance that should be fixed regardless of if it is "possible".

/signed I hate having to run with heros I dont normally use. esp koss. I dont play a warrior so i have very few skills unlocked to make him even remotely useful. I dont want to play a warrior just to unlock the skills either. This in normal mode is often a hinderance at the least and crippling at its worst. Also rurik is uber leroy in HM, give that moron a flag and do what you have to do. he can still tell us about the land being covered in tar and ash, just from a nice safe spot.

I would like to see this in both normal and hard mode.

~the rat~

/signed

Its annoying... although it does occasionally make you better off. Jokanur i just gave Melonni VoS, she was still useless though. Morgahn was extremely useful in Ruins of Morah even with 0 spear mastery. Koss is priceless in Jennurs Horde with Charge. Melonni again was a drag for Nundu Bay though...

I'm beginning to see a pattern Melonni sucks (thankgod we don't have to use Zenmai anywhere).

you just need to know how to use zenmai. i take her with me sometimes and she does fine. PM me if you want a build.

But to the OP, as i said earlier some heros are useless to some of us. if you dont play a dervish then melonni is worthless. She is pretty bad to me, and loss...erm Koss is even worse. Talking to my friend she said, that the cinematics would be thrown off if they changed it...thats a sacrifice i am willing to make.

~the rat~

n this is y hardmode isnt for ppl like u..time to unlock those skills buddy

Its worse than that. I have a decent dervish build I managed to complete normal mode on, however melonni doesn't know how to use it because she won't cast faithful intervention until she is low on health, which not only makes it useless, but it also reduces the damage from mystic sweep. Same thing with mystic vigor, but at least faithful can be cast after a battle and then ignored.
I'm happy with breaking the cutscenes, since everyone in hard mode should of seen them all at least once and there are none there I'd like to watch again. So since I'll be skipping them, whats the problem if they are broken ?

Seriously, if you can't do the mission with three humans and a hero (or SEVEN humans and a hero!) then you need to revise your strategy.

Like someone pointed out: it's called "hard mode".

I've never really agreed with people who dislike having to take a certain hero into an Elonian mission. Its part of the storyline and their required.

If you managed to complete the mission in normal-mode taking a certain heroe, then its obviously going to be doable in HardMode too.

The only other option is to have the required hero be an NPC in the mission, because they obviously need to be there for the storyline to make sense.

But would you really, rather baby sit an NPC who you cant control, over a Hero who you can manipulate?



I just dont agree with this "I dont want to use a certain heroe", because the missions are obviously do-able with them.

I agree its a bit unfair that a space is being uses up in your party, and you might want to use a friend instead. But tough! Im sure they will find another PUG, or you can take them later on.



You cant make variations like that between normal and hard mode. If you have to use a certain heroe in NM, then you should have to in HM. If your finding HM really hard, because of having to use a certain heroe, then rethink your strategy, or their build, or what ever.

Its HM for a reason.

Hell no. This is just as stupid as the 7 heroes suggestion. Get better at killing and the problem is solved.

If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the oven. As fish said, if you can't do it, then you may wanna rethink your build and your heroes build. Quit complaining.

It's hard mode for a reason. The missions are supposed to follow the storyline and make you use certain heroes for a challenge. If you can't work around having one required hero, then go back to normal mode.

/signed for some way of controlling NPCs. At the very least, let us talk to them to make them stay somewhere, like you can do with the Ghostly Hero in Dunes of Despair...

/signed Improvement of the AI of heroes would be a godsend. It would be nice for heroes equiped with the spells we give them, to use them in a proper manner instead of us having to dumb down their builds because there is currently no micro intensive way to get them to do it correctly.

Essentially to use heroes properly and get them to what I need to them to do feels like I'm literally playing 3-4 characters at the same bloody time. Heroes didn't need that type of micromanagement in normal because their jobs were literary henchies that we can mod armor, skills and have a minor part in how they act. In HM, trying to use them is like giving ourselves a handicap against monsters that arn't too hard to kill, but either our controls on the heroes are sufficient or their stupidity/leeroy tendency gets them killed before I can step in.