Henchmen superior to players?!?

The title says it all...

Now forgive me for the rant, and if I step on any toes here, I do appologize. I mean not to offend anyone, but to simply address and open a discussion regarding PUGs.

Since the moment I hit level 20 (Necro/Ranger) I have given up completely on PUGs and have been playing, very successfully, with a full Henchmen group. I ascended, I beat the dragon aspects, killed Markis and Infused my armor, all with Henchmen. Why? Because repeated attempts at the same missions with a PUG has failed... horribly.

Why? It doesn't seem like that should be true? A character controlled by a human being should invariably be superior to a stupid AI controlled minion, no? Yet time and time again a group will fail because something went wrong.

Is it ego? Lack of experience? Poor teamwork?

Sure PUGs are difficult, since you're mixing a bunch of unknowns together, but the tactics of the game are pretty consistent: Warriors draw fire, Monks heal, Elems nuke, Enchanters disrupt and crowd control, and everyone else does as much damage or support as they can muster with their skills.

So why do PUGs tend to fail so much?!

Your opinion is greatly sought.

Henchmen focus fire. Pugs generally don't.

Focus fire>pve except in UW/FoW where you must bring along certain key skills in addition.

It's somewhat sad, but henchmen are probably better than 50% of the players in GW.

All it takes is one bad apple to make a PUG fail.

Assuming that a bad apple occurs 25% of the time, you have
a 75% chance to get a good PUG in pre-searing (one extra member)
a 42% chance to get a good PUG in post-searing (three members),
a 23% chance to get a good PUG at Lion's Arch (five members); and
a 13% chance to get a good PUG after Ascention (seven members).
More generally .75 ^ N power where N is the number of 'unknown'
quality people you pick-up in your group.

So, it's just the odds, I think.

Oh come on, you know the answer already don't you? Most people really are not that smart. That is the truth.

It used to be that most people online were pretty smart because average folks weren't online. But now Joe and Jane Mediocre are all hooked up to the Internet and they are as dumb at games as they are at driving on the freeway or managing their credit card debt. Sorry if I sound elitist, but I am just telling the truth. It's the Bell Curve, baby. Once the people in the middle show up in ANY activity, that activity becomes a lot less fun. Online gaming. Music. Poker. Once the masses show up wanting to play, you have to deal with a lot of very stupid people.

You are right, playing in a PuG isn't all that hard. But neither is merging onto the freeway, and how many people can do that well? About half the drivers out there really need a henchman to drive for them. LOL.

--Nokomis (Haunted by the Bell Curve)

There is a simple solution to this problem.

1. Find a player you like and who plays well...this may only be one person out of an overall poor PUG...but that's how you network.

2. Add them to your friends list.

3. Play with them often.

Repeat.

PUG's are frustrating at times...but awesome experiences with Pick-Up Groups are where you start building a good core of friends...and eventually a strong guild.

I can understand the sentiment. I joined a pick-up group to do the dragon's lair mission. Three attempts and we couldn't even get past the first aspect.

I got tired of the poor quality play and got 7 henchmen. I then breezed through the aspects.

Teamwork is certainly one of the most important elements and its need only grows throughout the game. Unfortunately unless you find a good group of people, the going can be pretty rough but good people will obviously trump teh NPCs any day of the week.


I'd like to throw props to some people I played with recently. Two successive missions completed on the first try, and no primary warriors or monks. They're certainly not the hardest missions to do, but it was nice to beat them with these guys. I still keep in contact with several of them.

Riverside Province done
Sanctum Cay done

This reasoning (Bell Curve Example) can be applied to just about anything. Remember when the original Napster was this little, underground place to get music online? Then it hit the mainstream, little Billy and old Cranky Gramps got on, the news caught wind of it, exploited it to death, RIAA sues you, etc., etc.

Unfortunately popularity is a double edged sword. Its good because there's more people in the community who have the potential to increase sales, which increases content, etc. Unfortunatley, it also brings in every 11 year old tired of shouting out racial slurs on Xbox Live or Steam and drops them right into a new game with thousands of people just waiting to be pissed off by them.

I'm with you though, Mishaan, I use henchmen when ever I can, and only on the hardest missions (for this Lvl 14 W/Mo) due I attempt to get in a PUG.

I only ever use PUGs on missions where it requires that the team be in multiple spots at once to defend something. Otherwords I prefer the predictable henchmen.

Here's another problem. I'm noticing that quite a few people actually prefer the Henchmen, meaning I'm not alone. Which also means the good/smart players are generally thinking the same way as me, meaning it is going to become increasingly impossible to find any good players to group with. It's a sad state of affairs...

I would suggest spending an evening or two just trying to find a good guild.
The game isn't going to disappear. Be patient, find a crew that sounds mature and willing to have fun, and then reap the benefits.

Respond to guild invites. You don't have to accept, but you should talk to the person who gave you one.
Ask questions of people who are recruiting, such as how many members they have and how active those members are.

There are good ones out there. A lot of them.

I see a lot of the following spammed to the town channels:

"DUDEZ JOIN MY GUILD WE HAVE AWESOME CAPE"

but I also see a good deal of the following:

"The so and so guild is looking for members. We are fun, active and looking for people who enjoy the game, both PvE and PvP."

Respond...it'll only cost you a few minutes of gameplay.
With a couple of questions, you will get a good idea of whether or not it's one you want to pursue.

For quests that you pick up from NPCs, I almost always use henches. Only on missions do I try to get into PUGS. Also I've been having some very good luck with PUGS lately. Just yesterday I (a Me/E set up as a nuker) ran with 2 other people (a W/Mo and a E/N I think) in Borliss Pass. No monk, not even the hench monk. We went through it, including the bonus, and it was cake. 3 people in a 6-person max mission! Now that was an awesome PUG if I do say so myself. :P

Man I wish I had a henchman to drive for me. Then I could spend a lot more time flinging boogies onto other people's windshields.

As a radical idea, that may have been proposed before, but what about some type of feedback system akin to eBay? I know it will most likely be abused like crazy, but it may give some players some incentive not to be complete a-holes in-game if maybe the ratings then lead into better items via drops or something else?

Just thinking out loud...

Yeah I go with henchman a lot, you can complain about them all you want but they are a lot better than most players.
the main thing is as stated before, the focus fire, you just kill A LOT faster and as following receive less damage thus more chance of survival.
If you could tell Henchman to stand ground or defend area .. then it'd basicly turn into a single player game except for the PvP of course.

There are a lot of similar posts in this thread.
Most of us sound like good, mature players.

This should tell us all something.
There are fun, mature, and helpful people out there in Ascalon.
If you're playing with henchmen and are enjoying the game, great.
Personally, however, I feel that you're missing out on half of the game.

Spend a session where you would normally complete a mission or two and just talk to people in town. You'll network, add some friends, scout a couple possible guild choices...and come out with some good leads on people to play with.

A good guild and fun people won't just magically appear for you.
You have to work at it a bit and reach out.

It depends on the situation. A lot of the time Henchmen are better company, and easier to find at that. However, there are some areas where Henchmen just won't do. I couldn't beat Thunderhead Keep with henchmen because they couldn't hold the courtyard AND keep Jilas alive, they'd just focus on my targets and let the other enemies walk though and kill Jilas (who they refused to heal).

Off topic somewhat, your living in the wrong century for that. =) AI is superior to Human judgement is so many aspects of our daily life, it makes sense to me AI is better than players in many cases.

If you could have your closest, most trusted friend replace the AI in your car, would you? Of course not. (S)he's flawed like every other human, and will make mistakes.

In the end Guild Wars behaves like a good MMORPG. To progress the fastest, get the best items, and see the most content you need to have basic social skills (sorry D2'ers!), and be willing to work with other (human) players for the greatest accomplishments. If your an 'accomplishment oriented' player not willing to invest time building relatioships with those that can help you its gonna be tough to go far. All MMORPGs do this (reward teamwork) and buy giving us weak henchment, nerfing solo farming etc Guild Wars is moving more and more in this direction.

henchmen are fine if the map don't have swamps or lava fields or areas for them to stuck in. i brought all hench to ring of fire mission, they got stuck first by where groups of lava spit are, had to spend like 5 minutes moving back and fort to unstuck everyone. then at the point where you have to go through several lava pools with small resting areas, they just kill themselves there.

other than that, i've completed 2/3 ascension missions and couple of post ascension missions with pure henches using my r/mo, u know how much rangers are wanted in groups .

Oh, the henchmen have AI problems. The Monks getting confused and running back and forth instead of healing. The Warriors refusing to break aggro and generally making it impossible to pull. A Necromancer henchman who's perfectly willing to commit suicide to give someone a bit of energy.

Thing is, they're known problems, and can be worked around. Henchmen follow called targets. They coordinate, and do the job they're supposed to. They stick together.

They don't go Leeroy and rush in, blindly aggroing everything. They don't bicker about doing sidequests. They don't try and sprint ahead to a cutscene and get themselves killed. They don't try and tank in starter armor and bitch about the healing. They don't grab quest items and demand a ransom. They don't insist on taking a huge detour to capture skills halfway through a mission. They don't disconnect upon death. They don't have emergencies that pull 'em out of a mission halfway in.

While players have the potential to be much better than bots, they also have the potential to be much, much worse. If I just want to complete a mission in a timely fashion, bots are good enough. That's all there is to it.

Peace,
-CxE