Guild Wars 2

Do you think it should?

Being somewhat of loner player, I enjoyed the artificial company in Nightfall. But from what I heard, the hero system unbalanced gameplay… or something. I don’t really know what the problem was exactly.

What do you guys predict?

I’m not sure how well it would work with the current combat system. NPCs seem to suffer quite easily at the hands of enemies, especially in dungeons.

I wouldn’t mind having the ability to use them for like story mode in dungeons for a special difficulty that doesn’t really offer much benefits maybe other then to experience.

I think if they offer more then that, it would potentially hurt grouping for dungeons. Even though I think a majority would still prefer a competent human over a NPC.

Dungeons are what I would want to use them for. I don’t really want to have to look for a group of 5 to do one. BUT. Since the average player is going to be better than an NPC companion, I would think the dungeon would have to be scaled according to how many NPC heroes were in the group. Not sure how/if that would work.

Heroes wouldn’t work plain and simple. Why? AI and path issues. An NPC can’t jump, that’s why pets suck in this game (they are stuck in a 2D movement).
Yes, they may try to improve the AI but that would demand a lot of work and effort and I think they can use that energy in something more useful.
And finally, Anet want us to play in group, not with lifeless NPCs. I enjoy exploring the world by myself but, having a party for dungeons is nice and fun, specially when you found nice people.

Not to be too harsh about it, but I feel GW’s hero system was there to compensate for the fact that it wasn’t really an MMO, but more of a co-op game with a MMO lobby.

Considering that the focus of GW2 is very much on tactile combat, I doubt ANet will ever add it.

As much as I love heroes, I can’t see it working in this game. The pets we have already are dumb as posts. They actively choose invincible targets over normal, dangerous ones, they get stuck on every loose rock under the sun and they sometimes decide monster are just too scary to fight (like engineer turrets vs dragons. They could be literally INSIDE the foot of a dragon and still not even bother shooting at it. They will idle before shooting).

That said, I can’t imagine bolstering the rank of derpdom further with more NPCs.

I have a feeling if they ever bring them back it would probably be limited to 1 per player out at a time. This way you wouldn’t be able to do everything completely as a single player. It would also curb the botting possibilites from dungeons.

If memory serves, I believe there was mention that they don’t want any sort of effective companion system, because it would discourage social gameplay by making players more capable in soloing – Which would contradict their goals to encourage players to help each other and group up in the open world.

DreamOfACure.4382:

If memory serves, I believe there was mention that they don’t want any sort of effective companion system, because it would discourage social gameplay by making players more capable in soloing – Which would contradict their goals to encourage players to help each other and group up in the open world.

So, in other words…The ranger’s “unique” class mechanic is broken by design. Good to know.

schizandra.4587:

Do you think it should?

Being somewhat of loner player, I enjoyed the artificial company in Nightfall. But from what I heard, the hero system unbalanced gameplay… or something. I don’t really know what the problem was exactly.

What do you guys predict?

There was no balance problem with heroes, except for PvP where they were too fast with interrupts, iirc.

GW1 needed heroes because players were spread out to thin, I expect GW2 to expand less in area’s and zones and, should less players be online in the future, the number of servers could be reduced.

… Since the average player is going to be better than an NPC companion, …

Sadly, they aren’t, or weren’t. Dodging and everything gives players more chances to be better then npc’s.

I love Heros in GW1, and I hope someday Anet put the Heroes back in Gw2, I love the huge content they bring; customization, builds etc. Probably no at this moment, but like in Gw1 in some expansion in possible that Anet will put heroes.
Pd: sorry if my english is not very good

I never played GW1 (sadly), but I have read a lot of talk about it since playing GW2 and seen some vids.

I think the hero system sounds awesome and it would be great if it was added in a future expansion.

But, they will after improve the AI/pathing/durability of heros because all that sucks in GW2 at the moment, points to ranger pet, necros minions, any kind of summon and any npc who accompanies you…

I hated heroes in GW1. They killed teamplay and meeting-new-people-in-PUGs. They were the main reason I switched from PvE to PvP in that game. Hope to never see them again. Ever.

Apart from dungeons you can solo everything in game! Why would you need heroes / henchies for?
In GW1 you could only solo in certain areas and with some specific gimmicky builds.

I don’t think heroes would work.
NPCs can’t jump so they can’t do JPs of say Asura/Volcano fractals, can’t take the luminous thing to not die in underwater, etc.

Ooh, while I haven’t played GW1 (And I only started to notice it once I heard and got interested in GW2), I would love to have artificial company with me when I am going to dungeons and all that. It keeps the world of Tyria even more alive than it already is!

Hopefully, the kinks and the bugs (Which people mention) of the Hero system might be fixed up!

I think heroes were meant to make it easier for players to complete content meant for groups, if they could not find anyone else to play with.

Adding heroes would feel like making every class a pet class, and I don’t enjoy those as much as the other classes. So I would rather have them improve the guesting system and remove the region restriction, so we can always swap to a busy timezone when needed, and more importantly release the much improved the LFG tool.

I’d love to have a party of bots. They’re always up for whatever you want to do, don’t trash talk, and are always stupid in a predictable way. :p

Sil.4560:

I’d love to have a party of bots. They’re always up for whatever you want to do, don’t trash talk, and are always stupid in a predictable way. :p

And they don’t leave your team on their first death.
That alone is worth a bot’s place more than a player for me.

I would like to see it for world events that have less then 5 people.

Heroes in GW1 allowed players to complete content that was designed for a team since the entire game was designed around teams. GW2 is not designed that way since much of the game can be soloed.

IndigoSundown.5419:

GW2 is not designed that way since much of the game can be soloed.

except for the most rewarding part of the game, dungeons – which is where heroes would be awesome.

ANet has always “wanted us to work together.” It’s been called Guild Wars since the beginning. But that didn’t stop them from implementing the heroes in Nightfall. Based on that, I’d say that just because they’d LIKE us to work together doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t ever use the hero system again. I’d say they’re well aware that some of their playerbase would just prefer to play alone.

azurrei.5691:

IndigoSundown.5419:

GW2 is not designed that way since much of the game can be soloed.

except for the most rewarding part of the game, dungeons – which is where heroes would be awesome.

Dungeons were intended to be completed by coordinated teams. To make them playable by a player plus NPC’s would require a major revision.

Once upon a time when we had hardly any info on GW2 and there were conspiracy theories about it being vapor ware, the old Q&A that Anet had on the site said that they were going to let each player have their own hero or companion with them out in the open world, and this was how they were going to make the game solo friendly. This got cut out pretty early on.

Instead they designed the game’s content to be solo friendly while also being able to scale up with groups of people. The relatively few types of content in this game that don’t scale down to be doable by a single person are intentionally designed to require cooperation with other players, be it group events or dungeons. Heroes were implemented as a way to make solo GW1 players better able to solo the content. GW2 was designed so that this sort of system wouldn’t be required, and the content that’s meant to be soloable would instead adjust to accommodate the player.

For that reason I doubt we’ll see this sort of system for a very long time, if ever. And as mentioned earlier, companion AI is terrible enough for the few classes that rely on pet use.

TLDR: The hero system existed to solve a problem in GW1 that GW2 has solved in other ways. It’s unnecessary and, at the moment, would largely result in undermining the content that has been intentionally designed to encourage cooperation with other players.

I know it is probably never coming, but I loved the heroes and in particular the MERCENARY heroes (ie- my own alts). Especially in my personal story (which is essentially single player), I wish I could roll with the alts of my choice, instead of the supporting NPCs that we get a lot of the time.

But again… wishful thinking.

^ That would be my dream as well, though like you, I know it’s unlikely.

Bel Geode.8129:

I know it is probably never coming, but I loved the heroes and in particular the MERCENARY heroes (ie- my own alts). Especially in my personal story (which is essentially single player), I wish I could roll with the alts of my choice, instead of the supporting NPCs that we get a lot of the time.

But again… wishful thinking.

OMG do dungeons with my alts…… yeeeeeesssss! I loved do DoA in Gw1 and UW with my alts!

Wait… I never finished GW1… are you saying there WAS actually a part of the game when we COULD use our own alts as companions??

schizandra.4587:

Wait… I never finished GW1… are you saying there WAS actually a part of the game when we COULD use our own alts as companions??

Yes

Wow, I can’t believe I never knew that. What does DoA and UW stand for?

DoA and UW means Domain of Anguish and Underworld, two elite zones of Gw1.

Thanks. I’m conflicted. I either want to download GW1 to my new PC or I want to stamp my feet until ANet lets us run dungeons with our own alts in GW2. To have a small guerrilla contingent of my own Sylvari alts would make me SO happy. The fury of the salad people!!

I would like a hero system for dungeons or some kind of scaling so they could be done with fewer or just one person. I shouldn’t be forced to group up at all (and don’t use that “well it’s an MMO” argument, because I play this series mostly for the art/story/gameplay. The presence of other real-life people is just a neat side aspect which shouldn’t hinder my experience in any way). Sometimes I don’t mind playing and grouping with others and will actively try, but sometimes it’s just nice to have the option to play on your own terms/pace without having to worry about others and forcing one to play with others to experience all the content in a game we choose to play is nonsense.

No, why would it ever come back? Open world pretty much and there just is no point, it would completely ruin the dynamic events, etc.

Glovebox.5724:

No, why would it ever come back? Open world pretty much and there just is no point, it would completely ruin the dynamic events, etc.

Why?

I can’t see the AI being viable for Heroes / Mercs.

How would they know to trigger combos?
How would they handle jumping, avoiding lava pits, etc?
How would they know not to attack a mob with Reflection?
How would they handle areas that require use of bundles?
Fractals would not work at all.
Torchs in CoF3?
Totems in CoF1?
Barrels in CM?
Laser field in CoE?
Trap event in AC? Hell, the burrows events?
Deathball puzzle in Arah?
Almost every boss in Arah4 requires thoughtful action.
I could make this list massive.

The game is built for teams of 5 competent players. Geez, look at the nerf Simin thread in the Dungeon forum and you’ll see that some humans don’t even know how to play. AI cannot work.

I could not stand GW1 because of this i hate the idea of playing with only bots i want to play with real humans.

Again, I didn’t finish GW1… so are you saying there was actually a part of the game where you were forced to play with “only bots” and teaming up with humans wasn’t an option? Somehow I doubt that.

Well they might need something for dungeons because at the moment finding a group for them, especially story mode is a massive pain in the rear. Problem is I don’t know that AI would work to well with this sort of combat or the traps.

It’s too early to add heroes, the game is nowhere near empty enough to complete PvE content.

No thank you. All hero’s did on GW1 was make it impossible to find groups

If you think GW2 dungeons can be done with heroes then you haven’t really thought this through.

Lets start with AC, any path. Nothing fancy, just walk up to the top of the stairs before the spider queen without getting hit by any traps. How well do you think the heroes would handle this?

Okay you figured out how to do that now lets head over to Kholer. Just as heroes in GW1 were not perfect at interrupts, they won’t be perfect at dodging either. They are going to be pulled X% of the time. They’ll have to be programmed to know that they have to try to get away as soon as they are pulled.

Lets assume you’ve made it through. Now for path 1, so time for some more burrows! I think it’s very doubtful that an AI will be able to keep Hodgins alive you’re going to have to do that part. Now you are kiting/killings/dodging scavengers all while trying to blindly control the movement of the heroes to destroy the burrows.
Path 2, assuming the trap sequence can be done with just by setting off two traps then it should not be a problem.
Path 3 should be fine as well.

CM.
Path 1 and 3 are probably okay with heroes.
Path 2 gate bombing sequence … uh good luck with that.

CM path 2 highlights one of the biggest obstacles for heroes. Other places with similar issues are CoF p2, the laser grid in CoE, Arah p4 both for the orbs to open the doors and for the fight with Simin.

One option to solve that is remove all content like that from dungeons but that would take away a lot of things from dungeon designers. Some that are already in game and some we haven’t even seen yet.

Demented Sheep.1642:

Well they might need something for dungeons because at the moment finding a group for them, especially story mode is a massive pain in the rear. Problem is I don’t know that AI would work to well with this sort of combat or the traps.

The problem there is the lack of any reason to redo on ANY character other than to help someone out. Give people a good reason to redo story mode and that problem goes away. You’ve already seen the story, it takes just as long as explorable AND you are basically guaranteed less rewards. For fun? Are all story modes more fun than explorable? Opinions will differ there.

I really hope not. MMORPGs are social games, and socialization and cooperation should be encouraged and even required for some content, like dungeons. GW2 already has a ton of solo content, you can even get the best gear of the game 100% solo. I don’t want fake group mates ruin the group content the game has.

Want to play 100% solo? You have excellent games like Skyrim which are made for that. But if you play in an online world, you will have to accept having to play with others for some content. Be social. It’s rewarding, you may even make a few friends.

Not sure if heroes will be the solution but some way to do end-game PvE content completely solo would be most excellent.

Perhaps new dungeons or repeatable missions designed for soloing are a better sollution. I would really like to be able to log on, not have to pray that I have friends enough online and available at that time to do something, not having to hop on a pug and get irritated by ignorant kitty cats, and just be able to go at my own speed and just be able to go afk whenever I desire to do so.

Korrigan.4837:

I really hope not. MMORPGs are social games, and socialization and cooperation should be encouraged and even required for some content, like dungeons. GW2 already has a ton of solo content, you can even get the best gear of the game 100% solo. I don’t want fake group mates ruin the group content the game has.

Want to play 100% solo? You have excellent games like Skyrim which are made for that. But if you play in an online world, you will have to accept having to play with others for some content. Be social. It’s rewarding, you may even make a few friends.

Team play should deffinitly be encouraged and should have priority. However, right now the only solo content there is is map completion and personal story. This is a journey that will come to an end very fast. Soloable content outside of team based content would not hurt players who are all-in for teamplay, and would make players like me who do like to play solo on the off hours or whatever very happy.

Not for all content… but for some content, they could surely add them.
For example story mode dungeons would benefit a lot from having them. After all, who does those anymore? Maybe not make it 1 player 4 heroes, but 2 players 3 heroes so some puzzles etc. can be cleared easier and people don’t play with just bots.
Maybe also decrease rewards when using heroes in there… so people really just use them to get the story/gating content.

For fractals, explorables, wvw/pvp/outside pve they shouldn’t be used.

Oh and also make them as annoying as possible. Everyone should get 2x Logan and 2x Trahearne!

Fiddlestyx.9714:

No thank you. All hero’s did on GW1 was make it impossible to find groups

(I’ve grouped quite a bit with people lately in GW since returning to it. People use heroes because they prefer to play alone—that’s me, most of the time—or to fill in the gaps in a group. As for making a group, they’re posting on guru and setting it up.)

If they brought heroes into GW2, the world would be so full, if everyone was out there walking around with their companions. It would get old fast. If they ever instituted heroes in GW2, it would have to be instanced content only.

Meret.5943:

(I’ve grouped quite a bit with people lately in GW since returning to it. People use heroes because they prefer to play alone—that’s me, most of the time—or to fill in the gaps in a group. As for making a group, they’re posting on guru and setting it up.)

Some people don’t understand that many people who play mmorpg (like me) they like to play alone and with a group. I played during 7 years Gw1 with 2 friends, and at the begining we fill de gaps with henchmen, later with heroes and finally with mercenarys.
Now we are forced to play with 2 other people who of course can be fantastic, but we like to play at our own. It’s our game I we like to play like we want it.
For who says: “NO! Heroes kills cooperation! Go back to skyrim noob!” etc etc yeah let’s see this cooperation:
1.- /map “LFG …… path …..”
2.- Do the dungeon rush mode (of course don’t stop to see anythin and skip videos etc)
3.- Finish, /group “Bye”
Nice cooperation…. c’mon don’t force to play in a way that you don’t like it. If in gw1 a majority uses heroes is maybe not because it was difficult to find a group, it’s maybe because it’s was very fun.
Of course now heroes it’s very complicated, but I like to see them in the future, like Gw1.
Pd: sorry if my english is not very good

Maybe if they let me Customize my Thief Guild NPCs as heroes, and maybe the racial elite summons as well with an extra buff added. :x

Solo dungeons would be interesting though since there aren’t anymore after you finish personal story.

The idea of being able to use NPCs to fill gaps when one can’t find a group for say a dungeon is on the surface awesome.
I would have to agree with many here that have brought up the AI’s intelligence and lack of basic abilities (like jumping) though. The game’s far more three dimensional now and until the NPC’s are smart enough to be able to follow you through a jumping puzzle or respond accurately to an enemy’s tells they’re just fodder for Daily Healer.

What I wouldn’t mind seeing is elements of the system they used applied to the NPCs we have. Say Rangers given a flag representing their pet so they can tell it “Stay here and guard”, or even drag it out of the red circle of doom that it insists on standing in.