Guild Wars 2

I play solo, almost exclusively, as do a vast number of players in GW2. Given the difficulties in forming groups, it would be great if Anet would gives us heroes. They would be from the characters we have created. They could be designated for pve only. This would allow players to be “good to go”, instead of waiting long periods for group formation to complete. Delays in group forming for guild members are issues too at times. Being a “guildie” doesn’t guarantee that others will be interested in your game plan plan and come to your assistance. LOL, and heroes don’t talk back.

Just use the LFG tool.

They will never add this. There is already trouble with large events and lag, and recently some summonable AI have been nerfed because of server issues in large fights.

… guild?

The only thing I solo is the daily achievement and jumping puzzles. (Even with world bosses people group up for better loot, like on temple trash).

I am also mostly a solo player, but amvery much against this. Heroes destroyed GW1 in my opinion cause they where better then teaming up but there they where needed. In GW2 99% off all content (except dungeons) can be facerolled solo without any help. For the final 1% you might need some tricks (like something to give you stealth).

So there is no need for it beyond just convinience.

The issue is also with events. Many big world events and zergs in WvW are allready extremely laggy. If every player can also bring a few dozen heroes, then the game would become unplayable. So I’m sorry. If you want to play with heroes, GW1 still exist, but this is a different game and there is no place for them.

I apparently left out adding heroes for pve only

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I apparently left out adding heroes for pve only

you already mentioned it, and it doesn’t change anything

even if you limit it to pve-only there would be a lot of problems with performance and encounter scaling/balance.

Besides, why do you want to play a massively multi-player online game solo?

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I play solo, almost exclusively, as do a vast number of players in GW2. Given the difficulties in forming groups, it would be great if Anet would gives us heroes. They would be from the characters we have created. They could be designated for pve only. This would allow players to be “good to go”, instead of waiting long periods for group formation to complete. Delays in group forming for guild members are issues too at times. Being a “guildie” doesn’t guarantee that others will be interested in your game plan plan and come to your assistance. LOL, and heroes don’t talk back.

If the game is too difficult for you to play PvE solo, I would suggest making some friends, or joining a guild. Socializing is a big part of this game.

Xia.3485:

Besides, why do you want to play a massively multi-player online game solo?

Well that’s his business, and many people do

Xia.3485:

Besides, why do you want to play a massively multi-player online game solo?

Because sometimes, it’s much easier to go out and solo than it is to try and form a group to play for 30 minutes.

I would love them to implement this somewhere, but not in all PvE. I would love the option to do this even if it was implemented lazily in like a single dungeon. Either by giving them the AI of current NPCs of similar classes, or by just making them spam the one skill. No heavy resources dedicated to it, just a really lazy “here you can play with your alts in this area as a team” for screenshots and just general fun solo play.

Alternatively, if they brought it in as something like a racial elite. Less powerful than others so as not to be imbalanced but just a “summon a random alt from your account for 30 seconds” like the mistfire wolf. No special skills or utilities, just generic attack skills associated with their class (and if possible, weapon). For players without alts just add a generic NPC.

milo.6942:

Well that’s his business, and many people do

To the extreme of wanting NPC allies instead of talking to others in game? That’s kind of sad really.

Death Prosecutor.8713:

… come to your assistance. LOL, and heroes don’t talk back.

So very sad.

TChalla.7146:

Because sometimes, it’s much easier to go out and solo than it is to try and form a group to play for 30 minutes.

But other than dungeons / fractals / teq and worm, do you really need a group to clear the content?

CrashTestAuto.9108:

I would love them to implement this somewhere, but not in all PvE. I would love the option to do this even if it was implemented lazily in like a single dungeon.

The living story instances were like this, you can easily solo them. So is the personal story. So…

I would love to have a hero system. I always liked gearing them and setting up their builds in GW1 and see how well certain builds might do. I don’t ever see Anet doing this in GW2 though. GW1 was built from the ground up for that sort of system (henchmen at launch). GW2 isn’t at all.

The way the AI is in this game though…heroes would be TERRIBLE and you’d be better off doing the content solo.

Xia.3485:

To the extreme of wanting NPC allies instead of talking to others in game? That’s kind of sad really.

It’s not necessarily that they don’t desire to talk to others. Some of us just prefer playing with NPCs. They don’t kitten at you, they don’t treat you like trash, they don’t randomly go afk, they don’t argue about how things should or shouldn’t be done, etc etc.

Some people just like to play solo. Doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t social though. Although I’m sure there are plenty of people that are shy or have a hard time reaching out to other socially (ie socially awkward). That’s no reason to judge them so harshly.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Xia.3485:

To the extreme of wanting NPC allies instead of talking to others in game? That’s kind of sad really.

It’s not necessarily that they don’t desire to talk to others. Some of us just prefer playing with NPCs. They don’t kitten at you, they don’t treat you like trash, they don’t randomly go afk, they don’t argue about how things should or shouldn’t be done, etc etc.

Some people just like to play solo. Doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t social though. Although I’m sure there are plenty of people that are shy or have a hard time reaching out to other socially (ie socially awkward). That’s no reason to judge them so harshly.

I consider myself very social, but I have a 2 month old son. If I get time to play, I may still have to get up at any point if he needs some attention. I’d love to be able to run dungeons, but right now I just can’t even commit 1 hour of constant game time. Having NPC allies would be nice for someone like me, as I could stop at any point and be afk, and my team wouldn’t give a flying kitten whether I was afk for 5 minutes or 30 minutes. THAT would be very nice. But like I said earlier… Anet more than likely would never commit development time to something like this. I would love to see it though.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Xia.3485:

To the extreme of wanting NPC allies instead of talking to others in game? That’s kind of sad really.

It’s not necessarily that they don’t desire to talk to others. Some of us just prefer playing with NPCs. They don’t kitten at you, they don’t treat you like trash, they don’t randomly go afk, they don’t argue about how things should or shouldn’t be done, etc etc.

Some people just like to play solo. Doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t social though. Although I’m sure there are plenty of people that are shy or have a hard time reaching out to other socially (ie socially awkward). That’s no reason to judge them so harshly.

There are plenty of communities where the poor behavior you’re citing isn’t tolerated. You just have to look for it.

Source: I run a guild this way. As best as I can, which is imperfect, but we all do our best.

Nat.4029:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Xia.3485:

To the extreme of wanting NPC allies instead of talking to others in game? That’s kind of sad really.

It’s not necessarily that they don’t desire to talk to others. Some of us just prefer playing with NPCs. They don’t kitten at you, they don’t treat you like trash, they don’t randomly go afk, they don’t argue about how things should or shouldn’t be done, etc etc.

Some people just like to play solo. Doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t social though. Although I’m sure there are plenty of people that are shy or have a hard time reaching out to other socially (ie socially awkward). That’s no reason to judge them so harshly.

I consider myself very social, but I have a 2 month old son. If I get time to play, I may still have to get up at any point if he needs some attention. I’d love to be able to run dungeons, but right now I just can’t even commit 1 hour of constant game time. Having NPC allies would be nice for someone like me, as I could stop at any point and be afk, and my team wouldn’t give a flying kitten whether I was afk for 5 minutes or 30 minutes. THAT would be very nice. But like I said earlier… Anet more than likely would never commit development time to something like this. I would love to see it though.

That is an excellent example.

I know I personally would love to have heroes for instanced content like dungeons or fractals so I could get familiar with the paths before attempting to pug it. Especially considering I haven’t been doing them since the very beginning and most people seem to have no patience with those unfamiliar with the routes.

Anet may eventually devote the time to it. With all the existing models, all it would really take is some coding to follow a leader. Shouldn’t really be much different than coding new monsters.

timmyf.1490:

There are plenty of communities where the poor behavior you’re citing isn’t tolerated. You just have to look for it.

Source: I run a guild this way. As best as I can, which is imperfect, but we all do our best.

Oh I realize there are some good people out there. Although in many MMOs, they seem to be the few rather than the many, which is the truly sad part.

I also run a guild, although only a few of us are on at any given time it seems. Its hard to keep people logging in when they get bored or they have real life come up (which always comes first imo).

You are forgeting the GW1 example… once people learn how to use these “heroes” better (provided they are as good as GW1 heroes) there won’t be any need for human players anymore. Everyone will be running the dungeons on his own with his favorite npc allies, how is that any good?

maddoctor.2738:

You are forgeting the GW1 example… once people learn how to use these “heroes” better (provided they are as good as GW1 heroes) there won’t be any need for human players anymore. Everyone will be running the dungeons on his own with his favorite npc allies, how is that any good?

So make them on par with GW1 hench. People still pugged a plenty with those available. Of curse, even after heroes came out, there was still plenty of reason to at least partially pug. You couldn’t take 7 heroes.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

maddoctor.2738:

You are forgeting the GW1 example… once people learn how to use these “heroes” better (provided they are as good as GW1 heroes) there won’t be any need for human players anymore. Everyone will be running the dungeons on his own with his favorite npc allies, how is that any good?

So make them on par with GW1 hench. People still pugged a plenty with those available. Of curse, even after heroes came out, there was still plenty of reason to at least partially pug. You couldn’t take 7 heroes.

I can only imagine what Marionette would be like if a half dozen (or more) players showed up with 4 Heroes each.

Please, no.

Personally, I don’t dislike the idea as I am not generally a social gamer. Then again, I think Anet WANTS GW2 to be a social game….so this is very unlikely to happen. I can see where it may be useful in Dungeon / Fractal instances, but in general Open World I don’t see it being needed or happening.

Ladies and Gentleman and asuras, Let me introduce you a new Hero to fight by your side!
Wait for it…

TRAEHERNE!

Rym.1469:

Ladies and Gentleman and asuras, Let me introduce you a new Hero to fight by your side!
Wait for it…

TRAEHERNE!

Hero Skill

“On Me, Marshall!” Shout. Command Trahearne to stack on your location.

Death Prosecutor.8713:

I play solo, almost exclusively, as do a vast number of players in GW2. Given the difficulties in forming groups, it would be great if Anet would gives us heroes. They would be from the characters we have created. They could be designated for pve only. This would allow players to be “good to go”, instead of waiting long periods for group formation to complete. Delays in group forming for guild members are issues too at times. Being a “guildie” doesn’t guarantee that others will be interested in your game plan plan and come to your assistance. LOL, and heroes don’t talk back.

MMO = Massively Multiplayer Online. Being anti-social and playing solo is your choice, but the MMO portion is where the development focus should be.

Please never add this. For one thing, the open world was designed to be solo-able, it doesn’t need heroes (adding them to the open world would just make you need them because then it would be expected). As for dungeons, try the LFG tool . . . you may not have played GW1, but when they added the ability to have 7 heroes at a time, nobody bothered grouping up (it became a solo game whether people wanted it or not).

Simply put, heroes would ruin the game. Please never ever add them, GW2 is good the way it is!

I get where the OP is coming from. I completely empathize. In Swtor, you can break out a companion during a dungeon in a pinch to cover a spot if someone lagged out or dropped unexpectedly and it… sorta helped? Some of the time. They weren’t amazing, but they made PvE solo instances/story instances a lot of fun for me. If you want to do some mad solo MMO content, go try Star Wars the Old Republic. You get your personal story tailored to your class, including different companions to fight alongside you through solo content. Its actually a lot of fun and rivals what you are asking for here.

My vote is to keep using players for player driven content for Guild wars 2 though. That may mean biting the bullet and rolling the dice with LFG. I do it just about every night (that the wife lets me) and I’m able to get through 4-5 dungeons at least (mostly CoF1/2, SE 1/3, AC all paths, HOTW p1). Just the “easy” ones. Trick seems to be choosing to run the dungeons that don’t require an overabundance of thought and can be run quickly. Bite the bullet, embrace your inner zerker meta, grab your towel and stick your thumb out. Its not near as bad as you think….well.. sometimes its as bad as you think… most times the people are lovely individuals willing to freight train their way through the grit to get to the shiny core filled with phat lewts.

Yeah… just go play SWTOR

yup… no heroes pls…. it more or less destroyed the MMO aspect of GW1 and will do so to GW2…

I played GW1 for 7 yrs and have been with GW2 since the beta. I love my GW1 heros. And I play GW2 solo now due to losing a lot of my guild last year. But I like playing the game solo for many reasons. You can go afk whenever you want and don’t have to apologize or make other people wait. I can cook supper and play and go back and forth again without making other players wait for me. Also, as a shy person it is just my style of play and there is nothing wrong with that. Small guilds and solo players should not have to change their style of play. We were told in the beginning that this game was going to work fine for people who want to play in groups and for people who want to play solo. So no problem. However, there are lots of times I find myself dead due to too many foes and no one else in the area I am in. Many many times I have wished that I had my GW1 heros with me…even just one or two. With so many people either zerging or running dungeons or running the Living Story it is often hard to find random players out in the field to help you. These are the times a hero would be nice to have. It did NOT ruin GW1, it made it fun. People did NOT stop grouping up and people were still very social. ToA is an example of how people still grouped up every day and heros did not hinder that.

If you are a social butterfly and are in a big guild and have tons of friends to help you then that’s great. Some of us are not like that and would appreciate a simple hero being available when needed.

Besides, people running dungeons and such only want “experienced” dungeon folks and generally don’t want anyone but elite players on their team. That type of mentality gets old. We’re not all on the same game level. Not everyone has 3 legendary weapons or runs dungeons. Some of us just enjoy the PVE and exploring the world. Bring back our heros please…even if it is just one or two. Thanks.

maybe only for dungeons story mode.

I very much doubt this will happen, as it would require a massive re-write of the game code, followed by extensive re-balancing and testing of the existing content. It’s just far too much work, especially when most of the game is already soloable.

Don’t get me wrong. I basically Hero/henched all of GW1 too (and loved it! I enjoyed steamrolling a mission with just my AI followers when I see PUG groups fail over and over), but I recognise that that’s not the kind of game ANet is aiming for with GW2. Some people have put up excellent reasons in this thread for why solo play is a necessity, although I think most of these issues could be solved by finding the right, understanding, guild. Or even only playing with a close-knit group of friends.

Xia.3485:

Besides, why do you want to play a massively multi-player online game solo?

I’m here more for the persistent world and the ability to occasionally call up my friends and say “lets do a stroll across Orr tonight”, not because I have any special love of 10-20 thousand random people that also happen to be on my server at the time.

I’m in it for the ‘multiplayer’ M far more than the ‘massively’ M.

Xia.3485:

Besides, why do you want to play a massively multi-player online game solo?

Ah, but we wouldn’t be solo. We would have heroes, and never be alone.

As for why that would be better than grouping with other players, the answer to that question can be found in countless posts throughout these forums, and even some in this thread.

Adding heroes would turn pve into the same singleplayer experience as leveling in wow. I don’t like that. I am against heroes. This is an mmo, mmos are meant to be social. And i too have a newborn. If you don’t have the time, then why not just get a few pvp matches inn instead?

Coenraad.8302:

If you don’t have the time, then why not just get a few pvp matches inn instead?

Indeed. How unreasonable of other players to not want to play the way you want them to play!

Adding more special npcs that you can hire for gold for example as a form of additional guards for your keep or additional attack support similar to the npc allies could be decent for wvw in case your server is badly outnumbered. They could even make it cost less to hire when you have outnumbered buff.

However in PVE this is not so good of an idea, since npc ai is not really that good to begin with it’s not going to be enough to do any semi difficult content.

As much as i liked the Heros/Minions in GW1 it destroyed the need to be social and play with others.

clint.5681:

As much as i liked the Heros/Minions in GW1 it destroyed the need to be social and play with others.

Some of us consider that a feature, not a bug .

but… imagine Logan or Ritlock tagging along in your group to do AC. Imagine if one of them was your 5th…

No. When they added them into GW no one played with each other anymore and it made Soloing the ONLY option. As it stands theres barely anything you can’t do solo anywa. even on a squishy toon so its completely unneeded.

Margarita Sublime.5708:

Besides, people running dungeons and such only want “experienced” dungeon folks and generally don’t want anyone but elite players on their team. That type of mentality gets old. We’re not all on the same game level. Not everyone has 3 legendary weapons or runs dungeons. Some of us just enjoy the PVE and exploring the world. Bring back our heros please…even if it is just one or two. Thanks.

This is only the case for some people (I personally hate those kinds of groups). Try putting “casual” or “no speed run” in the LFG description. Also, I’d suggest not doing Arah explorable mode, it was designed for players who know exactly what they’re doing (which is why I don’t really do that dungeon much).

They actually planned to do that but scraped the idea

I am a PVE solo player for the vast majority of my gameplay and while it would be cool the problems both socially and game side would far far outweigh the benefits. I gotta say I don’t want them at all.
City of Steam sounds like a type of game you are looking for, also DDO has hired mercenaries.

Not for the open world.
For instanced content, heroes could easily be used.
Anet could even use current zones and have a vanquish mode where they transform the zone instance you have to vanquish or what not.

It would be nice to fight smarter AI mobs that is possible in an instance situation with a proper team.

But that doesn’t seem to be the direction of the game.

What would be the need of Heroes? Outside of Dungeons and a few Champions, what part of PvE are you not able to solo?

Not sure what Profession you are playing but as an Elementalist you can pretty much solo everything. There are some areas in Orr that are a challenge but doable if you take some time to set up before hand.

Being part of a good guild makes all the difference too. If you have a good guild… “You’ll never fight alone”

timidobserver.7925:

MMO = Massively Multiplayer Online. Being anti-social and playing solo is your choice, but the MMO portion is where the development focus should be.

1. Calling others “antisocial” because of a simple choice in how they play is not an argument, it’s an insult.

2. Stop dragging out the MMO argument. Garriot coined the term to describe UO.. the first game that actually allowed thousands of players to log on simultaneously. It does not mean “forced to group”. Sure, Anet removed the “forced to group” mechanic for DEs… but many remain as “forced to have other people in the area” to complete.

It isn’t even a matter of the content being “hard”. Most of the time it is just respawn rate and utterly useless NPCs. Some DE are just too tedious to bother with, for example.. rezzing 12 Hylek in Timberline Falls, which usually requires rezzing twice that number as they die faster than you can rez. Or the Manor you defend in Genaddaran, 8 mins of pirates from multiple directions and guards that die if glared at. Not hard, just frustrating when solo.. and in these zones, on my server.. that is most of the time.

The grandfather of all “group or die, M in MMO” games, Everquest, now has hireable mercenary “heroes”. The fabric of the Universe did not unravel.

Allowing mercenary/hero companion is possibly the simplest fix for declining participation in low level zones, an issue with all games with traditional level systems.

Even a system like the Fire Imp pet in GW1 that becomes unusable at a certain level would work.

I doubt given the current direction of this game we will ever see anything like Hero/Mercenaries. In spite of the rhetoric of play your way, in actual practice this game attempts to force people into activities and singular playstyles more than any other MMO I have played in more than a decade.

timmyf.1490:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

maddoctor.2738:

You are forgeting the GW1 example… once people learn how to use these “heroes” better (provided they are as good as GW1 heroes) there won’t be any need for human players anymore. Everyone will be running the dungeons on his own with his favorite npc allies, how is that any good?

So make them on par with GW1 hench. People still pugged a plenty with those available. Of curse, even after heroes came out, there was still plenty of reason to at least partially pug. You couldn’t take 7 heroes.

I can only imagine what Marionette would be like if a half dozen (or more) players showed up with 4 Heroes each.

Please, no.

I did specify instanced content previously. Heroes would only be for things like dungeons and fractals. Nothing open world. They are not necessary for open world.