Pros and cons of adding heroes in the future? And the difficulty of group content in empty, disposable maps

[IndigoSundown.5419]

Heroes as in GW would likely be problematic in GW2.

 

1) GW content was in proprietary instances with only your group in it -- whether it's just you and heroes/henchmen or includes one or more other players.  GW2 content in open world is not, and there are already plenty of complaints about frame rates with just players and their FX at larger events.  Unless ANet were to do something like Hide Heroes (as they do with minis), Heroes would make this worse at large events.  You have to know that players would keep them out in large map events even if there were a lot of players.  This would not be an issue with population capped instances, like strikes or dungeons.

 

2) NPC AI in GW2 is dumb, and by dumb, I mean really dumb.  Assuming the Heroes had stats similar to players and could be geared as players, ANet would have to program them to act like players.  If not, they'd be taken down easily by the many attacks in harder content that you have to dodge, block, etc.  While this level of AI could be programmed, it's safe to say that NPC's in general are not so programmed.  Instead, it seems like they have (or maybe don't have)  a lot more health and defense than players do.

 

3) ANet wants there to be a community which does content together.  This is one of the central tenets of their overall intent for the game.  One of the things often said about GW  was that Heroes killed the social aspect of the game.  While it may not have killed socializing completely, it certainly did greatly lessen the need to work together.

 

All in all, it sounds like implementing Heroes in GW2 would be a lot of programming work, is likely to negatively impact performance for players with marginal systems, and would be contrary to ANet's fundamental intent for GW2.  I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Mortime.1359]

Instead of copying AI companions from FF14 we could instead just copy the LFG system that FF14 uses. Getting a group for most things in FF14 is as easy as just selecting it and pressing the button to join. And thanks to daily rewards from duty roulette and mentor roulette they are almost always populated.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Mortime.1359

[Tukaram.8256]

I have been wishing we had GW hero system in GW2, since launch.  It is one my favorite parts of GW.

I would love to see it.  I doubt it will happen... but I would love to see it. 😎

[Linken.6345]

5 hours ago, Mortime.1359 said:

Instead of copying AI companions from FF14 we could instead just copy the LFG system that FF14 uses. Getting a group for most things in FF14 is as easy as just selecting it and pressing the button to join. And thanks to daily rewards from duty roulette and mentor roulette they are almost always populated.

Yea and how will you know you got a tank and a healer when most classes can que as that just to cut down que times and then not be geared for it?

[Mortime.1359]

3 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

Yea and how will you know you got a tank and a healer when most classes can que as that just to cut down que times and then not be geared for it?

By having built in checks in the system? And if those fail have the players /votekick the offending players. I mean those automated systems are not really rare. The FF14 one is just really convenient to use but WoW has one, CO has one, hell even City of Heroes has one. They are actually pretty normal in MMO's. Idk why GW2 group finder is like something anet dug out of an egyptian tomb with the technological depth of a word document. We could and should have better option on finding groups for group content instead of that glorified notice wall.

[kharmin.7683]

19 minutes ago, Mortime.1359 said:

By having built in checks in the system? And if those fail have the players /votekick the offending players.

Checks for what, exactly?  GW2 doesn't have a true trinity system, so what criteria would be considered "offensive"?

[Rasimir.6239]

5 hours ago, Mortime.1359 said:

Instead of copying AI companions from FF14 we could instead just copy the LFG system that FF14 uses.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that automatic group finder working just like public instances for strikes and DRMs? We already have that in game, and I'd love to see some metrics as to how many people use the automatic matching (public instances) compared to the manual party/squad forming through our lfg and private instances.

 

Judging from what I see in my guilds and friends list, there actually are far less people using the automatic matching for public instances, while the majority prefers lfg/private instances. Of course this is only anecdotal, but if it were representative of the majority of players, extending this to dungeons, fractals, and raids could very well be not worth it, because most people in this game just don't care for automatic group matching.

[mercury ranique.2170]

pros of heroes: none
Cons of heroes: Everything.

GW2 is a different game then GW1. GW1 had instanced content that didnt scale. They added heroes cause it was getting harder to play with people. GW2 has mostly open world content and it does scale. Making heroes just useless screen clutter helpfull for solo-farmers.
The instanced content that exist:
Story: No need as it is easy.
Fractals: by design it should be done real players. Try having a hero wield the clutist hammer in cliffside (as an example)
Raids: ....no comment

[jokke.6239]

11 minutes ago, mercury ranique.2170 said:

pros of heroes: none
Cons of heroes: Everything.
 

That's your opinion, not objective.

As long as we're clear on that, sure ..

[vanfrano.1325]

I love how some people think that XIV revolutionized gaming when in reality it did not bring anything new to the table, at all, ever. Nor did it make anything better in any way.

Edited February 8, 2022 by vanfrano.1325
typo

[Vidit.7108]

3 hours ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that automatic group finder working just like public instances for strikes and DRMs

No not really, In FFXIV if you queue for a specific dungeon the game matches you with players who are also looking for that dungeon and then usually failing that immediately pulls from the group of players searching for a random dungeon in the "leveling roulette". They are also sorting players into three different lines based on a predefined role determined by their class (tank/healer/dps) and once in the content they can't switch classes and are penalized for leaving. 

The public instancing here is just sorting you with whoever happens to join, there is nothing stopping you from changing your build entirely once you're in there. DRMs and Strikes can proceed whether there are enough people or not. 

[Rasimir.6239]

20 minutes ago, Vidit.7108 said:

The public instancing here is just sorting you with whoever happens to join, there is nothing stopping you from changing your build entirely once you're in there.

That's on purpose because we neither have nor need specific roles that are assigned to specific classes/trait choices. There's no way an automated system can decide which builds work together, but instead everyone has the ability to adjust their build to work with the people they play with.

 

You were talking about an automatic group finder, and I still maintain that we have that for DRMs and strike missions. If what you are actually looking for is a system that has clearly defined roles that are restricted to specific class and trait choices, then this isn't the game you're looking for.

 

The one thing we don't have is a random option that for example allows you to join any of the DRMs you have unlocked, instead of having to choose a specific one. I could get on board with that one if it worked similar to the random fractal option. I'm not sure if we need another carrot-on-a-stick daily to "incentivise" people into using it though.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

20 hours ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

Note about the discussion: This is not necessarily about whether it is possible to find players, or if you are able to find players for the content you personally enjoy. It's about providing consistent access to more content.

If you would have made this your first thing in the post, you would have saved me 1h of writing. 

[Keehra.4621]

To be honest, I experience the same thing as well. Difficult to get a party together for older content. Also, I'm very casual and mostly solo due to time restrictions and odd playing hours. I'm a returning player and having a lot of fun. And still have more than enough things to do outside of group content. But yeah, once in a while there's some content that I would like to do but can't get a group for.

 

Now usually, world events, bosses and so on aren't that much of a problem. For most of these events enough people show up. But getting a group for dungeons can be difficult.

The Heroes system, I do like it ... in the end - when playing through the personal story e.g. - you have a kind of hero crowd. Would I make this a system to be integrated? Not sure about that. I would rather have the possibility to select - whenever I'm about to enter a dungeon - to be able to select solo or group. Rewards should scale up whenever you're in a group but if you want to be able to experience the story, it should be soloable. One big thing though, I wouldn't allow this for new content, only after a while (not sure how long a 'while' should be 🙂 ). But as a returning/new player I would like to be able to experience the full HoT-expansion e.g. as this is - what 5, 6 years old.

Just my thoughts.

 

P.S.: I know and understand the concept of an MMO 😉, I'm not 'afraid' of playing with other people in a group context or join a 'guild'. But due to time restrictions, I do not want to join a group of players as I cannot invest the time needed to keep the social glue sticking.

EDIT: typos and crummy sentences ...

Edited February 8, 2022 by Keehra.4621

[Tai Kratos.3247]

2 minutes ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

If you would have made this your first thing in the post, you would have saved me 1h of writing. 

Sorry about that, I updated the post with that comment after the discussion went off into the weeds with a "I can find people this specific way for this specific content, therefore everything is fine" comments, and I was trying to make the argument that for some content and for some play styles, some content becomes inaccessible due to design.

I'll update the first post to make this more clear. My argument for heroes is to be a patch to cover specific instances where players are not available, or the culture around that content funnels players into a specific play style that is undesirable. I do not imagine them as a replacement for players, but more as a last resort. So when people are talking about NPCs being dumb as rocks, while it would be nice if any form of heroes were slightly more intelligent, it's not necessarily a bad thing that they don't live up to players even closely. I imagine them as a stopgap only.

[Khisanth.2948]

4 hours ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

Judging from what I see in my guilds and friends list, there actually are far less people using the automatic matching for public instances, while the majority prefers lfg/private instances. Of course this is only anecdotal, but if it were representative of the majority of players, extending this to dungeons, fractals, and raids could very well be not worth it, because most people in this game just don't care for automatic group matching.

Sounds like your friends and  guild mates all had the same experience I had with public instances. They were all terrible. Granted I didn't give it too many tries but I am not in the habit of bashing my head against a wall hoping that someday my head will win against the wall.

I think one of the problems is that there are too many people who expect to be able to complete content just by showing up along with a general mismatch of expectations among different groups of players.

4 minutes ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

Sorry about that, I updated the post with that comment after the discussion went off into the weeds with a "I can find people this specific way for this specific content, therefore everything is fine" comments, and I was trying to make the argument that for some content and for some play styles, some content becomes inaccessible due to design.

I'll update the first post to make this more clear. My argument for heroes is to be a patch to cover specific instances where players are not available, or the culture around that content funnels players into a specific play style that is undesirable. I do not imagine them as a replacement for players, but more as a last resort. So when people are talking about NPCs being dumb as rocks, while it would be nice if any form of heroes were slightly more intelligent, it's not necessarily a bad thing that they don't live up to players even closely. I imagine them as a stopgap only.

Creating solo versions of things would be easier than trying to write AI that is good enough to deal with all the contents

[vinterberg.2783]

20 hours ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

I'd love to experience it at my own pace without the pressure to skip all dialogue.

Join a guild. Really. If you find a nice guild it will be very much possible to run dungeons the proper way. 

With randoms, you can list "relaxed run with cutscenes and no skips" all you want, but there's a high chance you still get a speedy player who tries to take control over the group and yell if ppl won't adhere to his ways. 

I do dungeons with guildies, always allow them to watch cutscenes, never skip trash or use the old school stacking methods that quite frankly are just bad habits from the old days, and not any advantage anymore! 

It's much nicer to play dungeons properly, and with guildies you can do that!

[Sobx.1758]

38 minutes ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

If you would have made this your first thing in the post, you would have saved me 1h of writing. 

It's kind of interesting to me, since in the previous posts it seemed it was about that. The moment people didn't just nod their heads about the supposed lack of players, the edit was added about it not being about lack of players 😜

Basically: maybe what I previously said isn't entirely true, but since I don't like it not being true... now it's not about that at all, ok?

 

 

edit: Ok, you can be confused all you want, but lets not pretend OP's first posts in this thread weren't about that specifically:

21 hours ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

How do you find players for obscure content? There are certain dungeons I never find players for, LFG is empty, bounties are empty aside from a single zerg train that is active (sometimes), and old LW maps from years ago are usually empty.

21 hours ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

I agree it might, but is your view of LFG populated? Mine is almost always dead. Sometimes I find 2 or 3 players for some content, we sit in LFG for 20 minutes, then give up and split apart. I imagine this as a solve for that situation.

21 hours ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

This is already the case for a lot of content. If introducing it is acknowledgement that there are not enough players for some content, then the current response is just ignoring that fact. Or at least that has been my experience.

Hopefully not as confused anymore. This was THE argument OP had, but suddenly it stopped being about that. Ok, w/e.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Tai Kratos.3247]

25 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

It's kind of interesting to me, since in the previous posts it seemed it was about that. The moment people didn't just nod their heads about the supposed lack of players, the edit was added about it not being about lack of players 😜

Basically: maybe what I previously said isn't entirely true, but since I don't like it not being true... now it's not about that at all, ok?

I think maybe it was just a lack of clarity. It's about a lack of players for specific content / play styles. So your guild might be large enough to run certain guild content, but another guild might not be. Or for new LW maps there are tons of players, but for old LW maps or less fun maps that still have rewards people might seek there might be a lack of players. It's in about providing consistency between popular and less popular content or providing a net for certain play styles.

So it's about both, I don't think anybody is trying to be deceptive. The edit is still about a lack of players for specific content and creating consistency between the highs and lows.

EDIT: and to respond to your edit, yes my LFG is still dead. It's always seemed bizarre to me that, given the player count for this game, there is only ever maybe a single post in each dungeon LFG for maybe just the story path. Or for any given PoF map people rarely group up for bounties outside of a single bounty train.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Tai Kratos.3247

[Sobx.1758]

6 minutes ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

I think maybe it was just a lack of clarity. It's about a lack of players for specific content / play styles. So your guild might be large enough to run certain guild content, but another guild might not be. Or for new LW maps there are tons of players, but for old LW maps or less fun maps that still have rewards people might seek there might be a lack of players. It's in about providing consistency between popular and less popular content or providing a net for certain play styles.

So it's about both, I don't think anybody is trying to be deceptive. The edit is still about a lack of players for specific content and creating consistency between the highs and lows.

You've mentioned that the heroes would be inherently and noticably worse than the players. If that's really the case, you should be ok with starting -for example- dungeon runs as a 3-4 player group which would probably be equivalent of a party filled with heroes, right? Just how small is the guild supposed to be for it to not be able to gather 2-3 more players (+you and not even counting 1-2 randoms from lfg)?

And what exactly do you mean when you say "lack of players for specific play styles" in content like dungeons?

Edited February 8, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Tai Kratos.3247]

2 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You've mentioned that the heroes would be inherently and noticably worse than the players. If that's really the case, you should be ok with starting -for example- dunheon runs as a 3-4 player group which would probably be equivalent of a party filled with heroes, right? Just how small is the guild supposed to be for it to not be able to gather 2-3 more players (+you and not even counting 1-2 randoms from lfg)?

My guild (which is comprised of family) only plays once a week, but I want to play more often. With LFG I might be able to find 2 other players for some content, but then I could fill out that party with 2 NPCs just to help a little bit / cut down on the wait time while looking for players.

So it'd be more like I have 3 players, and I add in two NPCs to fill out the rest of the team. I imaging running a dungeon alone with just yourself and 4 NPCs would be difficult, so the incentive is still cooperation. Or for old LW content that has rewards tied behind group events where you can't muster a large enough group and nothing is active in LFG.

And the reason that you might not want to add more players to a group is that we're basically having family game night in Tyria, so interacting with randoms isn't exactly ideal. Especially if you have some less-skilled players who want to read all the lore and watch every cutscene. As of right now, we just do map completion or story content (which is not the greatest, as another active thread on this forum is currently discussing).

[Geoff Fey.1035]

I do really like the idea of having heroes/henchmen for the solo content & ideally Dungeons.

You could make it accessible it similarly to Ascended Food where you can craft X components per day, so if you stockpile for a while you will be able to bring a sizeable team, but they only function in specific areas. Something along the lines of the Sunspear Paragon Support where you need to purchase/craft an item daily to access your heroes (think along the lines of Spectres from Warframe). 

Maybe put it in Jewel Crafting (or if you're Satan, Scribing) discipline to give it its own "ascended" expertise (Similar to how Chef got its Ascended recipes via collection). Lord knows we don't need Ascended Jewelry/Trinkets with how easily available they all are nowadays (and obsolete with the Amulet due to Living World Return).

[Sobx.1758]

6 minutes ago, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

My guild (which is comprised of family) only plays once a week, but I want to play more often. With LFG I might be able to find 2 other players for some content, but then I could fill out that party with 2 NPCs just to help a little bit / cut down on the wait time while looking for players.

So it'd be more like I have 3 players, and I add in two NPCs to fill out the rest of the team. I imaging running a dungeon alone with just yourself and 4 NPCs would be difficult, so the incentive is still cooperation. Or for old LW content that has rewards tied behind group events where you can't muster a large enough group and nothing is active in LFG.

And the reason that you might not want to add more players to a group is that we're basically having family game night in Tyria, so interacting with randoms isn't exactly ideal. Especially if you have some less-skilled players who want to read all the lore and watch every cutscene. As of right now, we just do map completion or story content (which is not the greatest, as another active thread on this forum is currently discussing).

There are 5 spaces for guilds. You can have one for your close family and another (or rather another 4) with active players that want to play more just like you. Other than that, remember to label your parties according to what you want to do so you can easier find like-minded players.

 

I think I've added it after you've started responding:

And what exactly do you mean when you say "lack of players for specific play styles" in content like dungeons?

Edited February 8, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Tai Kratos.3247]

1 minute ago, Sobx.1758 said:

And what exactly do you mean when you say "lack of players for specific play styles" in content like dungeons?

It's something that's been brought up a few times, where some people want to skip sections, skip cutscene, stack, or make demands. (This can apply to any gamemode.) Not all players want to align to optimized modes of play, some just want to play.

[Sobx.1758]

Just now, Tai Kratos.3247 said:

It's something that's been brought up a few times, where some people want to skip sections, skip cutscene, stack, or make demands. (This can apply to any gamemode.) Not all players want to align to optimized modes of play, some just want to play.

But you've said you don't want to skip. So if the only "specific play style" you mean here is the one that makes skipping available then... you know, it seems 100% irrelevant to your needs or this thread? 

 

...and now you've skipped the thing about being able to just join 4 more guilds for some reason? 😛