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Would you want Henchmen/Mercs for Private Instances?


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I never really saw henchmen and heroes as a fun mechanic, as a lot of their effectiveness came from micromanaging their skills and skill usage.

That said, it would be cool if npc's could scale when provided with boons and support from the player. Sometimes I'm tired of repeatedly playing story instances where I'm the only "good guy" who can deal damage.

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The answers don't match the question. You asked if it will happen, but all the answers are about whether we want it to happen, which is a different thing.

I don't think it's something Anet would do. In GW1 it was a solution to the fact that the entire game was built for parties, but it might not always be possible to get enough people together, especially for areas needing 8 or 12 people, bearing in mind everything except towns was instanced so you couldn't run into other people doing the same quest while you were doing it, only before starting. In GW2 their solution is to make almost everything instanced soloable (except things like dungeons and raids) and to add the LFG tool so it's easier to find other people to play with.

I think henchmen could still be useful in certain situations, but I wouldn't want it to get to the same point GW1 did where most of the time if I asked if anyone wanted to do a quest with me I'd be told I could do it with heroes and if I said I'd prefer real people I got sent links to sites to get better hero builds so I wouldn't need them. It was helpful in a way, but not what I wanted, which was to play a multiplayer game with other people.

I'm not sure if it's possible to strike a balance between making them good enough that it can help someone who can't find other players for whatever reason, but not good enough to actually replace other players and remove the incentive to play together.

(One thing I would like is the party flags and commands from GW1, for times when we're playing with NPCs, Dragon's Watch, Pact or whoever else. It would be really useful sometimes to be able to send them to specific areas, or tell them to attack/stop attacking.)

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I would like henchies as an option for solo story instances. I'm typically a player who has big difficulties to solo instances, especially if I'm forced to skills that are not my.

Unfortunately, there several story instances that are solo. Typically, some difficult ones of HoT story are preventing me from getting chars further in the story. I have the story stuck therefore. My only solution is to ask a friend to do it for me, but it's not always possible. I find that a bit sad (typically for now, I have 3 chars stuck in stories due to solo instances I can't come through).

I would therefore very much like to have the solution to ask help of henchies inside the instance, even if it means that, for example, the reward would be reduced because I took support and did not solo it. I don't care. But at least , I could come through.

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Never played the first game but this sounds like just a fancy way of converting group content into solo content. Something I have never been a fan of with games. Sure, it would be just an option here but then why fight symptoms rather then fix the actual illnesses at hand? Frankly, henchmen will not make old and unattractive content such as dungeons more desireable nor will they turn Fractals or raids into content that pleases everyone.

Not to mention the fact that many seem to be hoping to see henchmen out of sheer nostalgia without considering the huge differences between our current combat system and the one used in the first game.How would ArenaNet possibly balance them around instanced content without taking away everything that makes it remotely challenging, without tweeking and reworking the majority of bosses? Do people even know the content well enough to be asking for such a thing? It is one thing to ask for henchmen to be able to run dungeon story instances without a hassle but raids? Come on...

We have already seen people multibox certain bosses with clever squad compositions and proper positioning but that certainly does not work everywhere. How would you ever run bosses such as Dhuum without huge changes to the fight or without turning it into a micromanagement nightmare that even less people will be able to perform? Or are we talking about the removal of all mechanics and any difficulty to allow the bots to tank and spank for you like ín the easiest of easy modes? Maybe that is what this is truely about in the end.

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@thepenmonster.3621 said:I said yes simply because, for a guy with a magic sword and a reputation as a kicker of butts, Rytlock does terrible damage in a fight.

Not only does he do terrible damage, if you're using a ranged class he will continuously flee combat to be near you! He has that gruff voice, but in reality he's nothing but a cowardly lion. :anguished:

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To answer the questions:

Do you think it's a good way to help new players?Of course not, if anything new players don't need any more hand-holding. Plus a feature like this would be monetized so hard (as it was in GW1 btw) that new players won't be able to use it. Zero point in adding a feature like this for "new players"

Do you think vets would enjoy having some customisable mercs based on their own characters?Seeing my own characters in my home instance maybe. Allowing to interact with my own characters, see their inventory and move items around various characters all in a convenient place, also a huge yes. Right now I have to use an external application, gw2efficiency, which has a proper search function so I can see which character has the item I'm looking for. If they added a way to see all my characters at a convenient place, and edit/change their inventory, I'd be all for it! But as something you can take in an instance, a solid no.

So the question is if you think henchies and mercs will ever come to fruition and why?Besides the clear gem store issues, a player-made character used by the AI would be absolutely terrible. Since this game requires positioning and it's something that is very hard to code, and it didn't really exist in GW1 either. Furthermore, GW2 is much more complex game (for an AI) as besides positioning there are loads more of skill and abilities at the same time. To complicate matters further, GW1 was a reactive game, where you acted based on something someone else did, even the AI spreading happened -after- they took their first damage from an Area of Effect skill. GW2 on the other hand is proactive, you need to act -before- something happens.

Remember fighting Hydras back in GW1? Micromanaging Protective Spirit was the only way to cast it to avoid the Meteor, as the AI was only reacting and using it -after- you were dealt your first damage. Remember also how interrupts worked, an AI Mesmer could never interrupt a 1/4 cast time skill, that's because for the AI to interrupt something, that something needs to be activated (reactive), meanwhile a player Ranger could interrupt a 1/4 cast time skill by firing the interrupt arrow like Savage Shot BEFORE cast even started, something the AI could never do.

GW2 requires proactive play, which is really hard to do/code in an AI. Using something like Retreat (to get Aegis) -after- you get hit makes it rather pointless. To those commenting on Rytlock doing little damage, if your character was there instead of Rytlock, they'd do even less damage because they'd most likely be dead. One shot killed by an attack they could not react to. At least Rytlock has 100000000 health and never dies.

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I would love it, not in the least because setting up a good NPC team with synergizing skills was about the most fun I had in GW1(Heroes system). But even without that part I would love to be able to do some dungeons with a team of Henchmen. Or fractals, but since Fractals aren't really dead yet I do not see them doing it.

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Dungeons would be easily soloable with a NPC face-tanking everything, but this is a multiplayer game and you're supposed to do group content with other players. Some dungeons actualy requires more than one player: CoF p1 (5), CoE all paths (4), Aetherblade path (4 or 5).Mercs would bring only more power creep. We only have these pets or sunspear supports (30 min CD).

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