Guild Wars 2

In Guild Wars 1, you implemented a system where we could select one of our other characters to follow the one we were gaming with, as a henchman sidekick. While we don’t have henchmen in Guild Wars 2, I think it would be a neat addition to PvE if we could select one of the characters we aren’t playing to follow the main.
If you enabled the sidekick player-character to have its full build, weapons, and abilities—perhaps you could make the game register it as a second player, to scale events accordingly. Or, more simply, you could give it a limited range of abilities based on profession and have it act as a weaker, but permanent and revivable, “summon”.
This would be fun for any player. Most of us develop a sense of affection for our heroes, and it can be hard to pick between favorites. Why pick, when you can have two together on the field? Also, it could be a neat addition for role-players who have inter-relationships between their characters.

Sorry to stand directly opposed to the idea but I directly oppose NPC grouping of any sort. Henchmen, heroes, and mercenaries are what directly ruined GW1 for me because no one played together anymore. Mainly I’m sharing this so the Devs can see both sides to it.

While I loved my mercenaries in Guild Wars 1, I can see the objections to having them in this game. The Devs want people to rely on each other when they need help. They want people helping each other out at skill points, group events, etc… by getting guildies to help them or by calling out in map chat. If people are instead relying on gem store purchased NPCs rather than each other, it effects the community the Devs hope the game builds. So, reluctantly, I also have to disagree with the idea.

I like the idea of this for Dungeons maybe where you’re a couple of bodies short of a team and you just can’t find anyone, but not for the open World.

Well…instead of NPCs following you… in Gw2, you have the option of buying temporary pets from a few event NPCs that you help finish their quests. Fire elemental and ogre pets are pretty neat. They help fight and do pretty nice dmg. Any class can use those and pretend they have a pet like Ranger.

They shouldn’t be available in dungeons or WvW etc., but I would LOVE to bring an alt to open world PvE as a partner. Especially if they kept their stats and armour etc. It would really add a new dimension to the PvE side as you could customise you classes accordingly.

Again, not for dungeons or any PvP, but most definitely would be awesome in regular play.

CrakittenestAuto.9108:

They shouldn’t be available in dungeons or WvW etc., but I would LOVE to bring an alt to open world PvE as a partner. Especially if they kept their stats and armour etc. It would really add a new dimension to the PvE side as you could customise you classes accordingly.

Again, not for dungeons or any PvP, but most definitely would be awesome in regular play.

Dungeons are the only places where I think they might be needed. They’d fill the gap for groups of 3 or 4 players and avoid waiting ages for a fifth or going into the dungeon undermanned.

Yeah, but that’s the “just the tip” scenario. Then they’ll add them able to go anywhere. And why even stop with one? People will say “well, I have 4 level 80 characters, I should just have an entire group of them.” And then no one would want to party and ANet will have released a second online single player game.