(edited by EdwinLi.1284)
If Heroes return in GW2....
If they give in to hench/heroes/mercenary then they’d have to be capable of dungeons fractals and raids. GW1 they could fill slots for old group content.
In a traditional MMO the stat grind answers the issue of less people playing old content in GW1 there was no stat grind but there was hench to fill vacant slots. As gw2 spreads it needs a method outside of waiting around for lfg to complete content as that’s bad design. Gw2’s player base will spread and thin as time goes on and without stat and level increases the solution they came up with in GW1 makes more and more sense the issue is when.
I’d say existing characters changing depending on the map and time like hench.
Heroes don’t work well in an open world game. Especially in a game with so much active combat, do you really want a “hero” that has the ai of Braham or Rytlock? They would be completely useless like the actual npcs.
And since creating some new AI is unlikely to happen, “heroes” are also unlikely to happen.
Heroes don’t work well in an open world game. Especially in a game with so much active combat, do you really want a “hero” that has the ai of Braham or Rytlock? They would be completely useless like the actual npcs.
And since creating some new AI is unlikely to happen, “heroes” are also unlikely to happen.
I would like a Braham and Rytlock to have the AI of heroes. At least for some skills they were programmed to have more situational awareness rather than “I am going to use Shield of Absorption as soon as it is off cooldown”. I have no idea what Rytlock actually does besides dying.
I hope not. GW1 was lessened by the addition of heroes in my opinion. Henchmen werent too bad but I disliked the hero system.
I hope not. GW1 was lessened by the addition of heroes in my opinion. Henchmen werent too bad but I disliked the hero system.
lolwhat?
heros and hardmode carry gw1 to this day. If anet hadn’t introduced heros and hardmode we probably wouldn’t be playing gw2 today.
Henchmen and Heroes are a neat idea, but not for raids.
Dungeons? That would be fun. It would allow individuals to run Twilight Arbor or such to get tokens they need for whatever.
Fractals? maybe. I think they are similar to raids in their design.
Raids though? Definitely not. Yes, there are groups that are trying to do raids with fewer and fewer people , but in the end it’s still about actual human beings playing together to achieve a goal.
Where are my gem sales? I want gem sales! Nerf EVERYTHING!
I hope not. GW1 was lessened by the addition of heroes in my opinion. Henchmen werent too bad but I disliked the hero system.
lolwhat?
heros and hardmode carry gw1 to this day. If anet hadn’t introduced heros and hardmode we probably wouldn’t be playing gw2 today.
Loved hard mode. Disliked heroes.
Personal Heroic Companions (PHC’s)
A PHC is s self created Character of your Account, that you can unlock to become a Companion for any of your other Characters of your Account.
A PHC simply is everything you made your Character off, it uses exactly your Equipment, your Skills and Build with that you have left it the last time you logged into the game with it.
The PHC System would allow it the player to play basicsally “a Family of Characters” in them most true technical possible way there is.
You want to strife through the lands of Tyria as brother and sister perhaps?
Create a male and a female Character with the same surname and unlock one of them as PHC for the other Character, so that you can call your Character of your Accoutn to become a Companion in your Party.
Add to this the Feature of “MOC” = Momentum of Change, which allows the player at any time you want to change the controls of your Main Charactr that you play with your Companion, so that the game allows you theoretically to play any of your party charactrs (if all are companions) as you like to take over the controls of the character you want to control for the moment, so that you as a player will manage your whole party, but you can always playat the moment just only 1 character, while the A.I takes over the control of the other 4 currently uncontroled characters.
Add to this then a Command System, which allows players to give your Companions commands with that you can control them in some kind of way, without that you need to take over control of them completely as an alternative way of managing the characters.
Lastly improve the A.I. of the game and give Companions a player customizable A.I where the player decides, how the A.I should act with the uncontroled characters in specific situations – basicalyl a system that gets inspired from Final Fantasy XII’s gambit System, that allows you to tell the A.I of your companions what they shoudl do in specific situations in regard of PRIORITIES
Do this, when that happens, do that, if this happens and so on .. ignore priority X, if this and that happens together.
A priority System can be so got, if its designed well to make the A.i act in games much smarter, because we – we intelligent individuals can influence it – thats the key to make A.Is better, because a simple A.I without priorities will never be better than sa player.. but give an A.I priorities, so that it can make intelligent decisions for you automatically based on your priorities that you want the A.I to have and you have a functionating system of intelligent companions that do exactly what you want them to do for you, without that you have to tell them something at all.
People fear so much, that Heroes would have the same impact on GW2, like they had on GW1.
But both games are completely different in design, that you can simply say, that heroes in GW2 woudl have the same impact on the game, like they had in GW1, because GW1 was a complete instanced game and GW2 is not.
GW2 has mechanics, that require group play and polayer interactions, that a Hero can’t do for you, which have to be done by a real player. like carry environmental items around, activating game mechanics like pulling levers to open gates and similar stuff that requires player interaction with the game world.
PHC’s with a Command, MOC and Priority System combined included would be an absolute enrichment for this game and they woudl be the right answer to the problem of player population on MMOs always moving only like locusts from new content to new content, while leaving old stuff forever behind.
Personally I like the idea behind sub classes ~ quoted from Chris Whiteside
Part 2
Newer players need to get a way, with that they get things in this game done, without having to have always a full player group first, what is somethign what becomes harder and harder for newer players in older game content, when the active players aren’t anymore actively playing in older maps, thus it becomes from time to time harder to find people for the things that you want to do, if that thign you want to do is somewhere in a old content part of the game that nearly nobody plays in anymore.
the only way to get out of this proble,m then is by beign in a helpful guild or try searching viaLFG tool for people parwise hours long, until you’ve found 4 other peopel that want to do the exact same thing as like you, can communicate with out and understand your language all…
people want to be independan,t that want to play in their personal own pace, without to have to wait on others for a long time, because many people don’t have alot of tiem to wait first on others – GW2 is still also a game for casual players – peoel with have when they play eventually just only like 30-45 minutes maximum time for the game. Thats the moment what you want to just log in with your heroes, and do somethign what you want to do in the short tiem you have, without wastign your tiem first with group finding!!!
Thats why this game needs PHC’s !! people also may never forget, that using them is NOT A MUST. Nobody will ever force you to use PHC’s, if they would ever exist.
The problem with GW1’s heros for the game was, that Heroes became simply too effective to the point, that playing with them only made the game easier, than playign with real people, because heroes eacly did ,what you wanted, real players are dumb and need to be teached first before they can be effective and helpful.
That was GW1’s problem.
I personally hope, that ANet will implement one day, eventually with a next feature Pack or via next expansion personal heroic companions to the game.
They would be very helpful for the game, they have no disanvantages for anymore, they simply are an optional alternative for players, which simply don’t want to waste time with waiting for others
Personally I like the idea behind sub classes ~ quoted from Chris Whiteside
Guild Wars 1 open areas were built for groups. With the exception of Pre-searing, you couldn’t run around solo with a low level character and survive. Your characters were made to work in a group. The group could either be made up of other players or of henchmen and later heroes.
Since Guild Wars 2 doesn’t really have that problem, there’s no reason for heroes and henchmen. Unless ANet decides to add in a bunch of open world areas that require groups to complete, I don’t see them adding heroes and henchies to the game.
Personally, I’d love to play with heroes and henchies but I think it would make the current open world content too easy and defeat the purpose of an MMO for dungeons, fractals and raids.
I’d actually enjoy that system. Here’re the points I see for such a device :
- Heroes would only join you in instanced content : story, dungeons, raids etc.
- You unlock heroes through exploring, meetings, choices, and maybe the crown/fist/heart dialogue system to “persuade” them to join you. It could imply doing some quest too. You’d such be able to unlock more or less iconic NPC’s like Occam, Beigarth, Malyck ?, Almorra, Master of Whispers, and why not Destiny’s Edge or Marjory, Kasmeer and whatever name this guild got.
- Second option : through another quest system, you’d unlock other characters of your account.
- Once unlocked, your heroes live in your home instance.
- You can customize skills, traits and gear of your heroes in home instance.
- You hire heroes from your home instance in a “Please follow me in my next quest” dialogue thing.
- In the instance, you can control your heroes very much like you did in GW1. I liked this system of flags and roles, and ability to manually trigger skills.
Ya the Companion is more for helping through older content that become low in population due to newer contents. We see this issue now with HoT Maps as certain aspects of HoT maps, well majority of it, requires players to work with other players to complete but there is just not enough players helping unless they wait for a long time for a response from someone either the map, finder, or guild.
Not to mention Season 3 Maps has been suffering from this issue. While each map provide some cosmetic rewards and Endgame level easy obtained accessories future maps will provide the same leaving the map less populated since there is not much keeping older players who have obtained everything they wanted from there already.
Contents like Raids most likely will not be allowed to use Companions since it is designed to work with players more than the other content is.
As for making this Companion story important it would be a nice addition to explain why the Companion is with our character. With the Companion being a Member of Dragon’s Watch he or she will have a actual story significants. It also provides players a actual choice to influence Dragon’s Watch as a leader, even if it is just recruiting one member, since so far members of Dragon’s Watch are not actual chosen by the player but are just being predetermined due to knowing these characters for a while.
As for the usualy post of people saying No because they can only think about only the worse case senario of implamenting this system, I have to agree some people do tend to over exaggerate things instead at looking at long term benefits as the game gets older and/or what limits a system like this may have to prevent those worse case sencario from happening.
(edited by EdwinLi.1284)
you can solo all the content as it is, a companion would make that worse.
“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize
Henchmen and Heroes are a neat idea, but not for raids.
Dungeons? That would be fun. It would allow individuals to run Twilight Arbor or such to get tokens they need for whatever.
Fractals? maybe. I think they are similar to raids in their design.
Raids though? Definitely not. Yes, there are groups that are trying to do raids with fewer and fewer people , but in the end it’s still about actual human beings playing together to achieve a goal.
Like I said heroes and hence are GW2 answer for old content
In three years or more if the game is still around people will be doing other things and the current raids will be a ghost town. Peeps will have the same stats so soloing would be impossible and thus heroes/hench/merc everything gets old and people don’t like doing old content but that content is new for new players.
Thus it’s better if they do go this route to program them for raid assisstance as well. Though an easier method would be to scale down old lvl 80 content so no matter how many years down the line this game goes the ancient stuff can be completed with fewer and fewer people as time goes on.
I really, really hated when the heroes system was introduced into GW1. It was the system that started that game down the path of being a single player game.
Go to GW1 and try to get a PUG going for any difficult content. If you manage to get 1 or 2 other players to join you, you’ll be lucky, but the one or two other people who join will insist on bringing their heroes with them, so much so that they will leave your group if you decline.
When GW1 was fresh and young, it was leagues more entertaining to me, because it felt much more like an actual MMORPG in that you would be playing with a large group of other people. You might bring one or two henchmen along, especially if you weren’t able to find a dedicated healer for the team, but otherwise groups were almost always formed of primarily all players. Today it is a relative wasteland of solo players soloing all the content they want to do. Granted, the game doesn’t have the playerbase it once did to support strictly player-driven parties, but even if you go to Kamadan where most people hang out these days and try to organize a map exploration group or a boss run or to hunt for elite skills, you’ll spend at least a solid hour begging in chat and will likely be spammed and/or insulted. Apparently you’re considered a “noob” these days for wanting to play with other humans in a self-proclaimed MMO.
I apologize for any hostility that comes through in this post. It isn’t directed toward the playerbase, really, because that’s simply what GW1 has evolved into and it’s what Anet decided they wanted for their game. I do still play from time to time, but it isn’t what it once was and I attribute a lot of that “solo” mentality to the introduction and ongoing updating of the heroes system.
So, please, no heroes in GW2. We have the playerbase to support dungeon and raid runs without introducing heroes. Don’t shape GW2 into a single player MMO. Please?
(edited by drunkenpilot.9837)
Well that is partly why I chosen the concept of only allowing 1 companion per character. GW1 grew to dependent on the Heroes because players could bring more than 1 Hero into content meant for group of players when the Heroes were mostly made for simple tasks such as map exploration and being Story mission involved characters (usually only allowed needing to bring 1 Hero into the Story mission that is require for story reasons).
If Anet kept their original design for Heroes being just better helpers for the simple task that don’t require players then it would have been fine but at some point they thought it was a good idea to allow players more than Heroes in their group over just allowing only a limited amount for group content.
Restriction wise I can see Anet putting up limits on Group content with Hero Companion in GW2 even if they choose to limit players to only allowing 1 Companion per character such as No Companions for Dungeons, Raids, and Fractals while only allowing use of the Companion for the World Map for exploration or Story instances since the Companion is a Story involved character and for getting players farther into their Main Storyline when old maps become lower in population over time since the map lost people for being too old.
If players were restricted to only 1 Hero Companion back in GW1 most players would have probably just shrug them off as only neccesary for personal task that don’t require much effort to complete such as reaching a outpost or just killing a few trash mobs in the map for quests. I shrugged off my Heroes back in GW1 for only personal small task such as reaching locations and completing normal side-quests most people just completed themselves without any player helps and left the hard stuff such as story mission to playing with players back when they limited Heroes to only 3 per group.
(edited by EdwinLi.1284)
I think if it was restricted to dungeons or fractuals that would be great, (like only usable in a special solo mode). [Plus great way to get tokens and gear solo, if there aren’t any actual people around].
But, I don’t really want a bunch of npcs following me in open world, that would get annoying.
I would love to see computer controlled assistants in the game, with the following points:
- Based on your other characters, so you can put work into building your preferred team.
- 2 Assistants maximum at a time, for a “party” of three.
- Comes with some fast buttons to control them. “Go here” “Follow” “Passive” “Attack my target” and so on.
- Only used in Dungeons, Fractals, and story missions in PvE.
- Also used in a new PvP format where 3-4 players go against each other using their teams.
Sarcasm, delivered with a
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
- Also used in a new PvP format where 3-4 players go against each other using their teams.
They tried the hero arena in gw1 and in the end removed it because it was really bad. I doubt it could work here either.
n three years or more if the game is still around people will be doing other things and the current raids will be a ghost town. Peeps will have the same stats so soloing would be impossible and thus heroes/hench/merc everything gets old and people don’t like doing old content but that content is new for new players.
That’s unlikely to happen any time soon because Raids give Ascended item rewards so there will always be a reason to run them. It’s like saying that fractals is a ghost town because so many years passed since their release but the fractals are still being run to this day.
They can also go back to the first Raid and give it some extra rewards when new Raids are out, to keep it interesting and rewarding.
I like the idea of a Hero-System for dungeons and story content. It should be optional though. If you want it, use it. If you don’t want it, just leave the Hero-Slot in your UI empty. Also it should be limited to 1 Hero per player. Actually I’d like to use one of my other characters (skills and gear included) as a Hero.
I think Heros would also be a good addition for old open world maps. Some of these maps feel so lonely, that I sometimes cast a fire-elemental just to have a companion. As an additional restriction for open world heroes I would add: Despawns/hides if more than 5 players are within a certain radius.
I’ve wanted to see heros brought to GW2 for awhile. Specifically in Dungeons, raids, fractals and maybe story instances. Not everyone likes playing with other players. I agree with others in that it wouldn’t work in the open world.
What I would like to see is hero selection from our toons/characters we’ve built and equipped.
The only place that Heroes make sense in GW2 is in instanced content, not the open world. That would just turn every class into a pet class and really overload the megaservers (as it is I can’t see my mini pets half the time).
We already have Heroes in the LS (Braham, Rox et al), I would love to be able to choose my party and set their builds and so on for LS instances or dungeons like I did in GW1 but I can’t see ArenaNet doing it anytime soon.
- Also used in a new PvP format where 3-4 players go against each other using their teams.
They tried the hero arena in gw1 and in the end removed it because it was really bad. I doubt it could work here either.
Ah, that is disappointing.
Sarcasm, delivered with a
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
Back when GW2 was just a gleam in ANet’s eyes, they talked about player characters being able to choose between a companion or a buff to their character. Given the way the game turned out, it was apparently too much trouble to offer that choice. Even ranger, the character based on having a companion, has pets with mediocre to poor AI who had to be buffed with massive damage reduction vs. AoE in PvE.
I can understand the nostalgia for Heroes from GW as well as the antipathy, but this game would not do them very well, and the effort to make them fit in would doubtless detract from other things. At this stage in the game’s life, I believe that systems/mechanics development ought to be reserved to new weapons/specs for characters and balance changes rather than changing basic mechanics yet again.
Back when GW2 was just a gleam in ANet’s eyes, they talked about player characters being able to choose between a companion or a buff to their character. Given the way the game turned out, it was apparently too much trouble to offer that choice. Even ranger, the character based on having a companion, has pets with mediocre to poor AI who had to be buffed with massive damage reduction vs. AoE in PvE.
I can understand the nostalgia for Heroes from GW as well as the antipathy, but this game would not do them very well, and the effort to make them fit in would doubtless detract from other things. At this stage in the game’s life, I believe that systems/mechanics development ought to be reserved to new weapons/specs for characters and balance changes rather than changing basic mechanics yet again.
I remember that back before GW2 was released. I think the Hall of Monuments was going to provide some stuff for the companion as well based on who was placed in the Hall of Monuments. Though sadly they never went through due to issues with design.
Going off topic for a moment:
Though I agree more resources should got to creating new Elite Specs and balances we already know Anet plans to release new Elite Spec per expansion, though a lot of players would prefer 2 new Elite Specs or more per expansion. As for balance well not many people are very fond of “balances” now consider how it is handled currently. These things are already set for the next expansion with New Maps and Storyline but the question about the expansion will certainly be what is the “real new Main thing” the expansion will introduce.
For HoT it was Mastery system that was meant to make exploration more “dynamic”. I am not saying they have to make the Comapanion system the next Expansion system. It is just the concept of what a Expansion provides that is “new” really is a shacky subject either for being too little content, too much content, too much change, or little to no change in the game, and etc.
HoT introduced new things but the change was too much and people felt it was too little as well due to how short the HoT storyline was until Season 3 was released.
(edited by EdwinLi.1284)
I remember that back before GW2 was released. I think the Hall of Monuments was going to provide some stuff for the companion as well based on who was placed in the Hall of Monuments. Though sadly they never went through due to issues with design.
Going off topic for a moment:
Though I agree more resources should got to creating new Elite Specs and balances we already know Anet plans to release new Elite Spec per expansion, though a lot of players would prefer 2 new Elite Specs or more per expansion. As for balance well not many people are very fond of “balances” now consider how it is handled currently. These things are already set for the next expansion with New Maps and Storyline but the question about the expansion will certainly be what is the “real new Main thing” the expansion will introduce.
For HoT it was Mastery system that was meant to make exploration more “dynamic”. I am not saying they have to make the Comapanion system the next Expansion system. It is just the concept of what a Expansion provides that is “new” really is a shacky subject either for being too little content, too much content, too much change, or little to no change in the game, and etc.
HoT introduced new things but the change was too much and people felt it was too little as well due to how short the HoT storyline was until Season 3 was released.
I get what you’re saying. I guess I was thinking that changing to a companion(s) system, even in instances, would be a drastic change to base profession mechanics. I’m leery of dramatic systems changes because they take a lot of time and resource changes and delay the preparation of new playable content. It would be hard to design and balance encounters if you’re not sure what the character mechanics are going to be. I’m not sure whether another content drought would be good for the game at this point in time, especially when it seems like they’ve finally gotten to a sustainable release model while working on the next XPac.
The story missions were balanced differently during first few beta weekends, from what I remember. Your companions, especially the heroes like Rytlock, did damage similar to your own (from the perspective of a low and inexperienced player of course) while enemies were much stronger. Really liked the idea of my own warband for that very reason.
Well, People complained, things were seen as too hard to manage for many players and stuff got changed eventually.
NPCs have been nothing more than token punchbags ever since. The only exception (unless I am missing some) are the charr warriors in the Ascalon Fractal. They are a good indication on how every NPC used to be like.
Never played GW1 myself but I do not mind heroes (going by what people said) if we keep them restricted to certain instances, certainly not the Open World. I wouldn’t even allow them in explorable dungeons or fractals, to be frank.
(edited by Henry.5713)