Guild Wars 2

The addition of the looking for group is nice and everything, and I know this is a multiplayer game, but even then it’s not always easy to find other players to go with to do some of dungeons when you want to or have time to go. Since the dungeons are instances, I would suggest that the developers considering adding dungeon heroes (NPCs) to allow players the ability to compensate for the ability (or lack of willingness) to find a full group. Now I know I hear a lot of people saying that the dungeons are too hard or complicated so no AI could be able to do them, and they would be right as the dungeons currently stand. So to compensate for that, I think the dungeons’ difficulty and their end rewards could be reduced as the number of dungeon heroes increases. For instance, if you wanted to go into a dungeon by yourself, then you would get 4 dungeon heroes to assist you. Then the dungeon enemies would be less powerful (but still challenging of course) and your end rewards like dungeon tokens, experience/karma/gold/chances for exotics/etc. would all be reduced in proportion to the number of heroes you take with you. This way, players would still be able to enjoy the dungeons at anytime they wish without having to rely on other players to be available or willing to assist them. I know, it sounds anti-social, but let’s face it; whenever I go to a dungeon, over 99% of the time there is nobody there, or for that matter nobody even on that map. So yeah, I could put a posting for LFG in the new tool, but then I have to wait for responses which aren’t always forthcoming and so I end up having to wait and wait for responses. Unfortunately, there is too much ‘wait’ in this game as it is, and I think at least for instances like dungeons, the addition of heroes that are capable of assisting players to do the dungeons would make for far less wait and would bring the fun from dungeons to more players such as what was possible in Guild Wars 1. I really do hope that the developers truly do take this suggestion seriously and really do consider it as something that can be implemented because the older the game gets, fewer and fewer players will want to help with the dungeons as they focus their attention on other content like the Living Story, newer dungeons, WvW/PvP, ascended crafting, and eventually (hopefully) new expansions.

I’d love if they put in heroes/mercs into gw2. Thanks to them I solo’ed just about all of gw1. The down side is that with the way the battle system works, I don’t think it’d work. (Though you are right about scaling the difficulty and I guess rewards down a bit)

Look at the necro minion AI, and the ranger pet AI. Now put in that most spells/AoE moves give you just enough time to dodge out of the way. I don’t think there’d be an easy way to implement AI’s ability to dodge properly. Yes, there was the flag system in gw1, but that was mostly useful for the long time cast/long lasting ele spells. Plus for the most part the AI actually moved out of the way.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see heroes in this game. It was great having 7 people built around helping me be even more awesome. But the only way I can see them viable is if there is a magic path (like infantile mode in SAB) for them to follow during any jumping parts, and have a good AI that knows how to dodge (speaking of which, why can’t enemies dodge).

Maybe also (besides setting their gear stats/weapons/skills/traits) also have an “AI mode” button. Where you could choose which of the “new trinity” (dps/control/support) they try their best to follow. And maybe also more control over skills (for example the gambit system in ff…12?, use X skill on Y enemy when Z conditions are met), I remember it was always annoying when my ele hero would cast his 2 min cd fire spell when there was only 1 enemy left who was <20% hp.

I’d love this, I really would. My best friend and I are duoing dungeons to compensate the lack of Heores and henchmen.
People will start to cry and scream that adding that would “kill” the social side of the game and nonsenses like that. I say that in this game, there is nothing less social than dungeons, and if you often pug for finding a team you know what I mean.
Normal conversation for a dungeon run: Me joins a team “Hi!” 2 members reply, half the time not even an answer to that. 1 time over 10, someone will be cheerful and even say “welcome” (Happened once in my life only, after playing every day since headstart.). Sometimes it might turn out that no one has story done on that character or that no one is entering, so someone might go “Ready” “Enter”.
Run the dungeon without a single word, if things go smooth. Insults if someone does something wrong, rarely someone might explain a strategy.
“Thx 4 run, bb.” The end.
And this when people are not just kicked before even starting from some elitist that decided that the person is not good enough.
Personally, I’m preferring duoing stuff, taking three times longer due to the too high hp pools of mobs, but at least I don’t have to come actoss some jerks.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

I’d love if they put in heroes/mercs into gw2. Thanks to them I solo’ed just about all of gw1. The down side is that with the way the battle system works, I don’t think it’d work. (Though you are right about scaling the difficulty and I guess rewards down a bit)

Look at the necro minion AI, and the ranger pet AI. Now put in that most spells/AoE moves give you just enough time to dodge out of the way. I don’t think there’d be an easy way to implement AI’s ability to dodge properly. Yes, there was the flag system in gw1, but that was mostly useful for the long time cast/long lasting ele spells. Plus for the most part the AI actually moved out of the way.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see heroes in this game. It was great having 7 people built around helping me be even more awesome. But the only way I can see them viable is if there is a magic path (like infantile mode in SAB) for them to follow during any jumping parts, and have a good AI that knows how to dodge (speaking of which, why can’t enemies dodge).

Maybe also (besides setting their gear stats/weapons/skills/traits) also have an “AI mode” button. Where you could choose which of the “new trinity” (dps/control/support) they try their best to follow. And maybe also more control over skills (for example the gambit system in ff…12?, use X skill on Y enemy when Z conditions are met), I remember it was always annoying when my ele hero would cast his 2 min cd fire spell when there was only 1 enemy left who was <20% hp.

I see your point, and agree it wouldn’t be the easiest thing for the devs to do, but then again it’s not an impossible feat. I mean I know GW1 henchmen/heroes weren’t the brightest bunch of NPCs, but they still helped players get the job done. I think if the devs were to implement my suggestion they could tailor the NPCs in such a way to be able to react and survive the AOE attacks. Again, my suggestion involves modifying the dungeons in such a way that NPCs can assist, which means having to reduce the AOE damage and/or trigger times to allow the NPCs to avoid insta-deaths. I mean if the enemy NPCs have enough AI (to a degree of course) to make it challenging for players, then I’m sure friendly NPCs can also have their AI programmed to be capable of assisting players in countering other the enemy AI. We’re not talking about making friendly NPCs that are smart enough to counter players, of course. I would add the caveat to my suggestion that once players start a dungeon with NPCs, no additional players should be allowed to join into that instant so as to keep players from exploiting the ‘easier’ mode by first starting the mode, and then allowing their friends to join in to replace the NPCs. If not by adding heroes, then I would at least like to see some scaling down for smaller parties (and soloists) so that they at least have the chance to be able to complete them without having to beg other players for help. The scaling can also work the other way to allow players that want more difficult dungeons to have the option of higher and higher difficulty settings, with ever increasing rewards; basically like fractals. This wasn’t really a problem when people were really into the dungeons, but now it’s a lot like the temple events in ORR. You have to be lucky enough to find people to help complete them during the time you’re able to play, and that’s not likely to improve much as new content is introduced. Many of the events and dungeons sit in a perpetual loop of incompletion because nobody is playing them.

Pip.2094:

I’d love this, I really would. My best friend and I are duoing dungeons to compensate the lack of Heores and henchmen.
People will start to cry and scream that adding that would “kill” the social side of the game and nonsenses like that. I say that in this game, there is nothing less social than dungeons, and if you often pug for finding a team you know what I mean.
Normal conversation for a dungeon run: Me joins a team “Hi!” 2 members reply, half the time not even an answer to that. 1 time over 10, someone will be cheerful and even say “welcome” (Happened once in my life only, after playing every day since headstart.). Sometimes it might turn out that no one has story done on that character or that no one is entering, so someone might go “Ready” “Enter”.
Run the dungeon without a single word, if things go smooth. Insults if someone does something wrong, rarely someone might explain a strategy.
“Thx 4 run, bb.” The end.
And this when people are not just kicked before even starting from some elitist that decided that the person is not good enough.
Personally, I’m preferring duoing stuff, taking three times longer due to the too high hp pools of mobs, but at least I don’t have to come actoss some jerks.

Absolutely agree. I have a friend, and for some of my first experiences in dungeons he didn’t explain too well and he was familiar with running the dungeons like speed clears so it was ‘run passed these guys’…’don’t attack’…‘go here’…rush…rush…rush…and it was not fun at all for me because I didn’t have the chance to really absorb what was going on or know really what we were doing, and not to mention dying a lot because I was looking around when ‘wham’ I stepped on a trap or something spawned and insta-killed me. I understand making it more challenging for players as their experience with the dungeon increases, but even the ‘low level’ dungeons can be overwhelmingly difficult for first timers such that it discourages them from playing, and the elitist players out there make it even worse. I mean how many players went into CM for the first time after having leveled to the ‘recommended’ level for the dungeon and even with a full team of players found themselves party wiping over and over simply because they weren’t prepared for the increased difficulty over what they had experienced out in the open world? t(‘.’)j I’m not saying make them perma-easy, but rather encourage players to have fun with the dungeons so they can then progressively work towards higher and higher difficulties. I think the start would be to introduce hero NPCs with ‘toned down’ dungeons with lower rewards, of course, and then as players get better and better they can choose to attempt ever increasingly difficult levels of the dungeons with higher rewards. This would even appeal to, and possible draw those ‘elite’ players back into doing the dungeons again.

+2 thumbs up
:)
Would love to see this happen

i would love this, most of the time i look at dungeons but always ed up with ether a team that already did 2/3 of the dungeon or full of ppl who want to take command, the 4 captains on one ship thing.
if heroes are added specific for dungeons then i can finally play dungeons without some players taking charge who don’t even know the basics of strategy, i don’t mind playing with others but i play better when ppl keep their swearing to them self and show some true leadership skills as how i wound do it. -_-

The people who only play for rewards would farm stuff until they had all the gold and tokens they needed to buy whatever they want, and then they’d be bored. And then they’d quit. Wait. No, that sounds like an awesome idea. Let’s do this.

aliksyian.7642:

The people who only play for rewards would farm stuff until they had all the gold and tokens they needed to buy whatever they want, and then they’d be bored. And then they’d quit. Wait. No, that sounds like an awesome idea. Let’s do this.

Many people already only play for rewards and farm stuff. My idea for the addition of dungeon heroes would allow you to not only do the dungeons without a full team, but your rewards would be reduced in direct relation to how many heroes you take with you. The more you take, the fewer your rewards. So if you solo with 4 heroes, you might have to run the dungeon 5 times just to equal the rewards you would otherwise get for running with a full team. Serious farmers might go for that, but probably would opt for team farming as it would yield much greater rewards over time. Plus, if the dungeons had difficultly scaling where a full team of 5 could select harder and harder modes like with fractals, then running those dungeons should give even better rewards.