Guild Wars 2

Work in progress

TLDR: Individual players in the two lower population servers in every matchup have the option of adding NPC heroes to their party, equal to the number of players the highest population server currently has online.

The goal here is to use NPCs to fill the player gap on the lower population servers. They are an optional addition for outnumbered players/servers.

Hero = Pretty much the same as GW1 heroes. An NPC of any class, builds may or may not be customisable.

Heroes will follow the player around and attack enemies. They can also carry supply and be ordered to build/repair. They can also be assigned to siege where they will attack enemies within range.

Heroes may or may not be micro-managable (as per GW1).

An individual player on lower population server can add up to 4 heroes to their party (to make use of existing mechanics).

This is dependant on them not exceeding the total number of real players that the opposing team(s) has.

EG: Server A has 10 real players, Server B has two real players. Each of those two players on Server B can add up to 4 heroes each to their party.

They can then run around together as a 10 man blob, or as two separate 5-man groups.

If Server A has 4 real players and Server B has 1, Server B can only add 3 heroes…etc.

Each real player is going to be micro managing their 4 heroes if they wish.

Heroes will have all exotic gear and all weapon/traits options available to them. Or they could even come in the form of a few meta build options for simplicity.

Why do this?

This should aid outnumbered servers in defending their territory, capping objectives when there is only and handful of players on either side, and work towards levelling the playing field for lower tier servers/out of hours covereage.

I have not thought through all of this yet and I can see there being technical limitations or griefing potential…but I also see this as the only solution to declining WvW numbers short of a Red/Green/Blue – Factions/Alliance system.

Higher population servers would almost never see these heroes and if they did, there would not be many of them. This is mostly a solution for the lower tiers.

Heroes are also entirely optional so people can still solo roam if they wish.

Thoughts?

One word: rallybot
Do you really want having more challenge as an under populated server ?

Kicast.1459:

One word: rallybot

You will need them if, they are all lvl 82 archers and scouts and use some swarm tactic like: in one salve they use blind and knock back each on a different target and in the next salve focus 10-15 on one.

The player commanding them, will have a lot to do with stomping

Npc=stacks
15 characters

Hmm, fighting large numbers of AI opponents. Sounds suspiciously familiar.

Kicast.1459:

One word: rallybot
Do you really want having more challenge as an under populated server ?

They could be made unable to rally off, like summons are.

Fluffball.8307:

Hmm, fighting large numbers of AI opponents. Sounds suspiciously familiar.

What exactly? There is quite a lot of it in WvW already, especially as a solo roamer.

And what do you do when you breach a keep/tower? Kill about 5 NPCs.

Sube Dai.8496:

What exactly? There is quite a lot of it in WvW already, especially as a solo roamer.

And what do you do when you breach a keep/tower? Kill about 5 NPCs.

Yes, we don’t need anymore. It’s a huge complaint about EotM, and if you add a bunch of NPCs to competitive formats it gets sort of… trashy or cheesey for lack of better words. Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood in GW1 were both this sort of thing. They were fun, but it was almost 100% PvE. And watching NPCs try to do anything useful like assualting the fort in Fort Aspenwood was just painful. The warriors would wind up chasing some random troll for the entire mission, while the seige turtles fired at people that couldn’t even be targeted.

Do NOT want this for GW2. I want to fight humans. If WvW ever gets that bad, I’ll play sPvP exclusively.

You will get Hero Bearbow.

Ugh, please no Heroway WvW. =P Honestly hated HA if fighting against hero parties in GW1. I was there to PvP, not faceroll AI.