Custom Henchies FTW or FTL?

Given the current hench AI as demonstrated by eris vasburg, customizable hench would allow you to take a party of 7 interrupt ranger and dom mesmers and plow through the game easily.

FTW

I know for sure that all I want from the new customizable henchman is the following.

1. Create from scratch... just like you make any other character, starter armor and all. Also naming them would be cool (would not matter if anyone else already has the name since it's only a henchie and would be treated almost like a pet just with no changing after. (Deleting/Fireing henchies also possiable.)

2. Can give them any weapons you own and/or pick up. This will make the weapon be automatically customized to your henchie.

3. Simple type of AI to give your new henchmen... Healer (will not jump in there like a moron and die), Warrior (Attack like no tomorrow and heal if need be.), Nuker (stay between the group and shot all you can at the bad guys).. you know kind of what Icewind Dale 2 has in it's charater screen.

4. Buying your menchmen armor... yes go to any chapter and buy him/her any threads they look good in and dye it all nice.

5. Can make up to 8 Henchmen all only one profession. Plus you have to "contract" these henchmen to you, small fee to create a new henchie. So having 4 monks is fine but with no real fire power or combo builds (55's, SS, etc.) you are not going anywere fast.

6. Henchmen are the same level you are. So all their skills and attributes will be unique per character you have. Otherwise it could be a pain to try and use some skills.

7. This one is important. SHARE HENCHMEN IN ALL YOUR CHARACTERS. Keep their attributes and skills different for each character you have but their armor , weapons, looks, names, etc.. are all the same. I mean I am sorry but it would kill the game for me if I have to rebuy all my henchies new 1.5k armor for each character. I mean you do the math.. how much plat is that???!!! Plus can you imagin how that would kill the fun of making unique cool henchies.

I guess what I am trying to say is.. Anet please don't screw this one up, great idea but has alot of ways to become horriable and boring.. kind of like FF farming. Plus I really want to have a full team of henchies with all 15k armor dyed in black! ^_^

Nice argumentation but you forget a few things :

1) Considering that collector weapons can be gotten in exchange for easily droppable items and that they have max stats once you reach a certain point in the game, golds and greens won't give your henchie an advantage at all they will only make them look good. Add to that the fact your henchies won't automaticaly have the attributes to use the weapons you plan to give them and your playing time advantage goes away in smoke especially as armor being customised you won't be able to buy it for them in advance.

2) Up to now ANet has always put skills that were balanced in each chapter (yes I know we only saw two of them) as such your meteor shower + echo will most likely not be more efficient than a new player's combinations. The only advantage you would get would be in the early game and that is only if ANet doesn't make you unlock the skills for your henchies on a non account basis.

3) no argument there

4) no argument either

So as you can see even if ANet allows weapon/skills customisation it won't give the players that much of an advantage, at worst older player will have an easier time through the early game that's all

This said I also hope weapons, armors and skills will be unlockables on a character basis rather than on an account one.

I'm utterly against customisable henchmen. Did I spend all those hours trying to disuade Bioware against henchies in NWN in vain? Well yeah, I did.

..OK, not so utterly against it as all that. Not in a won't-buy-the-game sort of way. But dang nabbit, I ain't for it, I'm agin' it!

I was thinking about it earlier today, actually. I'd make a couple of assumptions in the interests of safety here:

(1) We will almost certainly have access to only Nightfall and Core skills to feed the henchies*. To keep first-time players from having gimped henchies, it's not unlikely that we'd be restricted to Core skils only (but would have access to all of them from the start).

(2) Single-class henchmen only. Anything else is asking too much of the AI. Similarly, we may be given fewer attribute points to spend or restricted to only two attribute "lines" - like existing henchies, who generally only use skills from 1-2 lines.

(3) Equipping them won't be a big deal - or won't happen at all. The gold sink of having to pay for a full hench team would cripple first-timers and be negligible to veterans - the worst possible combination for a game trying to expand its userbase while keeping long-term players entertained.

(4) They will be dumber than existing henchmen, who have AI scripts written specifically for them. I'd avoid any complicated skill interactions (nothing like a Recurring Insecurity spike, say ). Certainly no Vampiric weapons, spammable health-sacrifices like Order of Pain, or even spells with massive casting times!

(5) ANet will have to avoid any situation where people will be rejected from (say) PuGs because they can't bring pimped out henchmen with them. Therefore "maxing them out" (in skills, gear and level) will be made easy, possibly even automatic right from the start (i.e. UAX for henchies only).

* It obviously follows that no 'sin or Ritualist henchies would be possible. They still want to encourage players who haven't to buy Factions, after all...

Wow serious?Gotta get that magazine to read more on it.
Still i dont think it will be as costumizable as we are hoping,i think skillwise it will be more like what we have in factions but with a whole lots of more options.
Chocking Gas interupt henchie, inciendiary arrows interupt henchie,Savage spammer interupter, etc.

A bunch of people who will listen to you to follow call and bring skills you want and with ultra fast interrupt reaction time? Too sweet to be true!

If it would turn out to be true... wow, I want a trio farming build that bring me anywhere.

Oh, FTW I'll take one Erys Vasburg with a side order of Aurora please!

I don't know how to feel about customizable henchies. I think it's a double-edged sword:

On one hand I think it'll be great. Even now, standard non-customized henchmen are already superior to PUGs most of the time. With the ability to make a custom team build there will be no need at all any more to use PUGs!

On the other hand I think it is a bad tendence to encourage people to play solo (I consider playing with henchmen as playing solo) instead of playing in a team of humans. Isn't cooperation and interaction with other humans what MMO games should be all about? ANet even calls Guild Wars a "Cooperative Online Role Playing Game" for a reason! I think instead of making customizable henchmen ANet should rather have improved the tools for formation and tactical control of HUMAN parties! This way playing with humans should be more fun and more succesful than playing with AI. If I want to play with AI henchmen I don't need an online game. I might as well play an offline adventure then.

if that happens, it'll be so cool to have a hench fight, you set the skills, they fight alone >.<

I dont really care, as long as Eve is back as a hench again.

QFT & nuff said.

Well it did say customized heros, was henchman mentioned? A customizable hero could be like the one's in the desert where you can simply tell them to stay put or follow. You could prolly adjust their skils and have them attack targets but i doubt you could say "heal me you *&^%%#$ newb retard" and it'll listen or yell back "STFU you annoying human or I'll destroy your planet"...

I'm not expecting much and hoping it's not a list of complicated commands... If it even happens to come out at all.

I saw something similar to what you describe, and I made the interpretation that it was a customizable "Ghostly Hero" type guy, probably following you around through the missions. Top choice for me would be using him for interrupts, or a lesser choice would be to provide some healing/protection. Togo was great for most PuGs who liked to huddle up in nice packs when Elementalist/offensive Ritualist bosses were around.

More than likely, I would expect either a customizable dervish or paragon, or some strange pairing of made up skills. Seems like alot of work balancing the skills of every class to be used by a whole team of henchmen. Brings up memories of Stephen/Little Thom using Heal Signet in combat and taking an adrenal spike that dropped them in an instant.

I will also have a newfound fear of PuGs where I have no control over the skills that the customized heros have. That's why I hope its only one customizable hench. The first few times it might be funny... afterwards it will be annoying.

But still, its FTW!

If these customisable henchies are actually in nightfall, I wonder if they'll go to the point where you can create armour and plonk on runes, decide their skills. If so, they'll be a great goldsink but we will probably find good human players are still better and continue to play with guildies. Playing with pugs of course is hit and miss, it's also part of the fun not knowing whats going to happen when you enter the mission :P I will most likely continue to use guildies, henchies and pugs in nightfall.

JBut just being able to create your own uniformed army makes it a FTW for me :P

I really don't see how they are going to implemet this but I think it would be a great improvement if it is done correctly.

For example I think it would be great if you could share your custom henchman between your guild if you wished so you could help other guild mates by letting them use your hench builds.

It would also be great if you could add your existing characters as henchman I would love to be using my ranger and then have my own monk healing me in the same party.

Maybe also if you could combine the idea so you would be able to add guildmates characters to your party even when their offline with say a standard build for that character they have set.

TBH though although it sounds great im not sure if this feature will come to light at all. It just seems like a really complex idea and think it would be extremely complex for people tottaly new to guild wars to understand. Although some things make me think otherwise such as the paragon "leadership" attribute.

I think in the end of the day I'd settle for just having henchman obeying simple comands like "stay here why I lure" "Yes the lava kills you get out of it!"

This is why I so hope the HERO's or henchmen or whatever is based upon what skills you have unlocked for your account. It would force bad players to re evaluate what they learn and take into the field of combat. Mending would not be the first choice you give your monk so why did you give it to your warrior?... hmmm?

Also joining a Group would force a party leader to evaluate how his henchman, hero's whatever are set up and how he can best set his personal build to be the most effective. (Maybe mending is not a great idea) After all one of the major reasons most party’s fail is because of a lack of understanding of what a class does. How many whammo's (not to pick on W/mo's cause I have one) actually understood what a Mesmer does? If a whammo is forced to use or learn a class to make a valuable henchman then he gets to appreciate what a Mesmer does, same with Monks, Ritualists, Assassins etc…

I highly doubt we will be able set up complex specialty builds such as Boon Prot, Bonder, or Orders however my henchman should know how to use Dwana's Kiss and Word of Healing properly. A henchman should know that when a body dies to use Animate Bone Golem, Bone Fiend and Well of Blood etc. They should know how to perform simple things not judgment builds that need real world choices to use right.

Also I am sure there will be a default button for the Henchman. SO if you don’t understand what a Mesmer does you can tell you henchman (default button pushed) just do what you know best and lets see how it goes.

Another way to do skills for HERO’s and henchman is to have the Henchman say. “I know the following skills (Orison of Healing, Healing Breeze, Resurrect, etc) I can learn some more skills now. What would you have me learn to assist your efforts?” Then you select what the Henchman learns to aid you in your party build scheme.

I do not believe that players will have a hard time finding a group if they do not want to Hench. A computer AI CANNOT I repeat CANNOT do what a human can do. A human can make judgments and make calls and complex logic builds. NEVER expect this from your Hench. Personally I would not mind if they kept Hench builds at 6 skills per henchman to prevent complex judgment builds.

NOW for custom things the Henchman say. This would be a fun addition to the game. Just having the henchman say random thing I place into the AI could be Great. For example lets say I’m fighting a Grasp:

Hench 1 “That’s right Demon Spawn from Hell you are a Plague and we are the Cure!” (Male Domination Mesmer)
Hench 2 “We will We will ROCK YOU!” (Male Earth Hench)
Hench 3 “Can’t we all just get along?” (Female Pacifist Protection Monk)
Hench 3b”PACIFIST FOR THE WIN!”(Same Protection Monk)
Hench 4 “After we defeat the evil nasty’s can we have a Dance Party?” (Female Fire Ele)
Hench 5 “You da MAN ORIN MANDRAKE whoop their ASS!” (Paragon Motivator)
Hench 5b"Use the Force Luke!" (same Paragon)
Hench 6 "One time at Monk Camp...." (Female Healing Monk)
Hench 7 "How do I sign out out this chicken shit outfit" (Male Warrior)
etc,,,,,
Hench 7b"Why can't I use mending?" (Same warrior)

You can easily see how this would be a fun treat once in a while and if you don’t have anything for them to say you just leave those options blank.

Woohoo me and 7 W/mo all with mending - we will be invincible

I would be happy to have them with decent skill bar.Also them be more responsive.Charge dont cut it.If they had skills like the critters it would make a better game.
Right now I would put them on the scale of NWNs hench.Lame.There are some good ones but as a whole they need work....oh well

Oh come now, they're nowhere near that bad. They hardly ever turn and run back the way you came, over a bridge, through a monster-infested dungeon, over another bridge, and finally get stuck on a chandelier, when you order them to attack an enemy ten feet in front of them. Like NWN henches frequently do.

I'm not going to assume anything as to how much customization of henchment their going to allow, but I've always thought it would be nice to have some kind of setup similar to how you make a pvp char. Only with much smaller selections,
maybe 8 skills from each attribute, 5 available elites.. choose from 6 or 7 weapons, 2 or 3 different armor selections, just something small, but so that you can still outfit the hench to fit whatever it is your going to be doing.