Custom Henchies FTW or FTL?

What ANet will probably do is have 20 "Heros" (2 of each prof) that will be prenamed and have either(or both) premade builds (like PvP Char) or the ability to set up skills from unlocked skills. You might see armor and rune customization a.k.a pvp style, but will probably not be able to create a full team of any prof (IWAY, DervishWAY, or B/P teams etc...) Ppl most likely won't agree with me or not want to agree with me because it sound pretty crappy, but I don't think ANet will give this kind of power players for it would give them more reason not to start PUGs and would hinder the community aspect of the game. I'm more concerned with who (in a PUG) would get to customize these "Heros" and the insueing arguments if its not set up the way anyone or two ppl deem it should be.

8 player party.
---
me
2 godly reflex interrupt henchmen
1 ss necro henchie
1 Stefan
1 woh 1 boon prot henchies
1 Orion

BB pugs?

I hope its 3 instead of 2. I would actually like to see a Smite Monk Hench with Scourge Healing and Smite Hex in addition to my Protection and Healing Monks. Also 3 Rangers would do well together like what you can do on the Luxan side, 1 Damage 1 Interrupt plus 1 Longbow with Favorable Winds.

However I am unsure if henchmen should have secondary class options as this can lead to complex builds that may frustrate the AI. Secondary class options should be for players only. In this way a PUG group might have more appeal for players.

Ive been thinking about the "formation" thing posted above.

Hopefully FTW (ugh..) will be the fact that this will mean that there will be certain improvement on ememy AI...

I know if i was a dev, I would like to be the one who made the area that people think is the most sick and twisted not a chance in hell kind of map that make you totally rethink your schemas of working builds. Look how many more 'monster skills' there were in Factions, and the difference in a lot of the missions.

LOL maybe not as bad as NWN but they can use some serious work.
Sometimes it just trips me out.I seen them getting attacked they will and just stand there.Maybe with all the Events it is disrupting the AI.I know one thing the monsters are not having that problem.I really want to see good skills for the Heroes/Hench.They should be build like you were building a player chr.

Lets face it.. we will not be able to have any secondary profession for our henchies if we follow how henchies have been made in the last 2 chapters. Also due to this and the fact that it is just a dumb AI there will be no real complex builds possiable for henchies.. the most they will probably do is spam all the skills they can on anyone they see.. maybe if they are a nuker they "might" use AoE spells only when there is more then one enemy in the area (not counting bosses), I hope.

Humans will always be more wanted then henchmen but this would at least let us fill in gaps in our parties if need be.. no more waiting for 2 damn monks to join the team for 30+ mins if we can just have 2 well made monks who simply spam woh etc. on all who need it. Sure never as good as people but would at least take some of the frustration out oh "having" to always wait for people for any half way hard mission.

I think this concern is misguided. The primary reason I prefer henchmen to PUGs (and I think many people are with me on this) is that henchmen are better than most GW players. They also follow directions well, don't spam annoying **** over chat, and are generally much less infuriating to play with than real players. So what is the problem here? It's certainly not that the henchmen are too good - no, they're far from that. The problem is that the majority of the GW community is low-quality, immature trash.

If you want to encourage team play, the most appropriate way is to improve the skill of the average player. One way to do this is to make it impossible for bad and/or immature players to find good groups - and if henchmen become good enough (pray. hard, and frequently), that might actually happen. Most of the competent players will stick to guild or henchmen groups, and the trash players will be left on their own.

If it's just one customizable hero, I'm not sure what to think >_>

Have to agree, playing with hanchie usually makes me enjoy playing the game, you dont have rage quitter, you dont have trash talker etc. The reason i pick them isnt because they are better, they are not, Human player are way better than henchie AI if the player know what they are doing, but unfortunately, this is not the norm.

The only problem i have with them is when i play an assasin. Their AI isnt good for the assasin class. Well, if you really want to use henchie group with Assasin, you better use secondary Ranger and act like a ranger.

Yup same here.Too many AFK and quitters.It just happens too often.If you are lucky enought to find a good group it is a blast.Unfortunely that is getting tougher to find.I dont care if someone is "Leet" I just want a team that will work together or at least try.

I think everyone's reading too much into this. What we'll get will be closer to a cosmetic change than an actual improvement.

Technically, Factions already has "henchmen that grow with you," even if without the "customizable" part. The very first time you meet Emi and Chiyo - the assassin and the ritualist - is in Monastery Overlook, as soon as you create a Factions character. After that, both of them advance roughly at the same pace as you do (assuming you don't rush ahead or level yourself on easy stuff). The only thing you can't do is have input over their setups, which is what I think Nightfall will introduce.

The way I see it, each henchie in Nightfall will have a dialogue similar to the current one but with different ways to end it. After clicking on any henchie, you'd be able to choose their setup, most likely limited to skills but possibly also items and armor. What I mean though is not that the player will choose each skill the henchie uses but instead that the player will choose one setup out of the few available ones for the henchie. So - for example - we could have one Mhenlo to choose as a hench, but his dialogue options would let players invite Mhenlo [Protection Henchman] or Mhenlo [Smiting Henchman] into the party instead of the default [Healer Henchman] Mhenlo.

Most likely, gear will be outside player control as well. It's possible that henchmen will have different weapon sets like one set of collector items for each attribute line, but I just don't see player interaction with henchies extending to weapon trades. Granted, Diablo II had henchmen you could equip, but the time and the money a player would have to invest into equipping their multiple henchies as well as their own character would be prohibitive, as some people have mentioned.

The only way I can see customizable henchies with different looks is if ANet finally tries to test out "armor sets" for henchies - something similar to weapon sets that the players have been asking for. Even then, Factions has introduced the "all stats one look" armors, so chances are we won't see any difference even if a hench changes armor sets simply because it's better for game consistency, especially if the hench is also a part of the storyline. Come to think of it, if implemented as I suspect, these "customizable henchies" might be a test of the "skill sets" players have been suggesting as well.

Regardless of what we actually end up with, I just want to point out that pre-release hype hasn't exactly proven itself with Factions. How long did "new and different mission types!" stay exciting? Right, until we figured out we didn't have to do them. How many "party forced to split" missions did we see? One, The Deep, which people wouldn't have even seen if The Crusaders didn't start the "ferrying for free" trend.

In closing, I'd like to point you to this excellent Healbot Blues comic made by Labsenpai. Just replace "chapter two" with "chapter three" when you get to it

Man, all this hate for PUGs. I must have pretty good luck with PUGs, because most people are nice and decent players who know what they are doing. Sure, you run into the occasional jerk, but that's to be expected.

I'm excited about the idea of customizable Henchies, but I expect I'll continue my policy of doing Missions with PUGs and Quests with Henchies.

More time then not, it's fun to meet new people for an hour or so.

I agree with you on the PUG issue. I have had some Great parties with PUG's so I also don't understand the hate that comes from these boards.

However there are times when I don't want to interact with people and work on quests that I need to get done. This is where a custom AI can be so handy. AI henchies that you can customize to suit your needs will be far greater then the picks available. I would like to see a good Illusion Hench or a Smite Monk hench but there currently is not one to use. Hopefully with the new custom Hench options you will be able to make one.

there is something that might make custom henchies more reliable being able to set priorities of skills for each henchie and some drop down boxes for how the ai works with it like,defensive:low,medium,high.aggressiveness(runn ing into battle straight into an enemy;low(almost never),medium(from time to time like with henchies that use close up touch skills),high(spends most the battle at the enemy),very high(always stays int he frontline doesent retreat till the player does.

We'll have to wait for the release and see how it's implemented before we can really judge. I would imagine that you will be able to customize their looks and such more than their professions or their skillsets. This is not to say that you won't be able to pick from a variety of complete skillbars, but the AI might not be able to handle us picking whatever skills we want them to have. I also don't think that you'd be able to make a complete group of one class, because that seems a bit silly.

The hate comes from the fact that the average GW player you find in a PUG seems to have about as many braincells as I have fingers (and before anyone cracks any smart jokes, I have the normal number of fingers).

I don't deny that a good group can be found once in a while, and that they are an absolute pleasure to play with. I have had the good fortune to join some partially-guild groups, or groups of friends, with everyone coordinating over vent, or at least groups of good players that know how to run their builds and know what the mission/quest is about. Those kinds of groups are so far superior to henchmen it isn't even worth comparing the two.

But that's not the kind of group you're going to get in 95~99% of PUGs. Most groups are comprised of some combination of spammers/whiners, assholes, 5 year-olds, and flat-out morons. I used to PUG a lot, before I got frustrated and started my love affair with henchmen, so I'm not just pulling this out of thin air.

I am not, however, talking about newbies, just to be clear. I probably come across as a rabid newbie hater on the boards, but I really don't mind inexperienced players, provided they're willing to use their brain or at least listen to advice and follow directions. I don't care if someone hasn't done the mission before, even for a master's group, provided they listen when someone fills them in on what's up. The problem is that most newbies come with one or all of the other traits I listed in the previous paragraph.

But anyway, on-topic :P

Clearly, all of this is based on speculation. We don't know what the custom options are going to be, whether this is actually talking about henchmen, or some other hero, and how this is going to impact the game.

I actually agree with Shyft, in that I don't think there will be any practical improvements to the henchmen, and that most customization, if any, will be limited to cosmetic changes. To be honest, customization isn't all that necessary. They really could just improve the builds of the existing henchmen, and improve their AI. For instance, no running off and res'ing, no monk res mid-combat, limited or no casting under Backfire, limited or no attacking/skill usage under SS/Empathy/Inept/etc., no massive heals on slightly damaged allies, scattering from aoe damage, etc. In reality, a few AI buffs to existing henchmen could be a heck of a lot more useful than customization.

Here's something to think about - Derv/paragon henchmen could be extremely powerful if given the right skillbar, or if you're allowed to take multiple ones, even without any customization options. And if henchmen selection is closer to Factions than Prophecies (ie. you have lots of henchmen to choose from, with duplicates of certain classes), how will this impact the design/difficulty of the PvE campaign?

FTW of course

What I'm dreaming to see is having the option to make your OWN characters in a single account as henchmen (including pvp created ones). This way the characters are totally customizable since they have already grown with you over several game expansions.

I think advanced henchmen, particularly customized/controllable ones, could radically alter PvE design/difficulty, and very much for the better.

For the game to currently work overall, everyone needs to stand a chance at over coming the challenges presented. That includes people who play with only henchmen. This particularly becomes an issue in older chapters that become less populated. If henchmen become fully customizable, and can take fairly complex orders, then ArenaNet can raise the bar of mission design/difficulty beyond a mostly 'hack and slash'. Need to defend an NPC while assaulting somewhere else? No problem! Order half your henchies to guard and the rest come with you. Currently, something like that can't work because you can't split a henchmen team.

By raising the bar of what AI can do, ArenaNet could safely design all sorts of new mission types and higher difficulties. You could add things like the Titan quests, without worrying they are 'unhenchable' and closed off to anyone who can't find a group. You can have more complex boss battles, like fighting the Iron Forgeman, without having people unable to do them because of henchmen inadequecy. Missions could require you to "think" more, because now henchmen can keep up with a player instead of dragging things down to always being "kill this, heal that, kill something else".

Advanced henchmen could be the greatest thing that ever happened to Guild Wars.

(I might be a little too optimistic... but it's hard not to be over a possibility like this)

make a henchie that will ragequit at 60% dp for something more realistic

I'm going to make 7x dervishes and OOP necro in my party

I agree here as well; imagine the henchies even acting slightly as smart as say those NPCs in the Duel repeatable quests. When pitted against each other, it's a joke.
Each henchie "class" should also act like it's mob counter part to some degree. I've never seen the hechie assassin make any use of itself by attacking the enemy back line, yet the mob assassin's head straight to the back where they can do the most damage.
Even with improved AI, some coordination will be required though, as PvE is not fighting against same level 20's; rather 24 to 31 leveled mobs with a natural regen that's off the charts. So coordinated attacks are sometimes needed.
So simple commands such as:
Engage: henchies will act like the mobs and do thier class roles
Retreat: obvious use
Attack Target: like calling the target, but once that target has dropped, they return to Engage mode.

Customized or not, without the above such things and the ability to take them with you to other chapters, they will still be of limited use and somewhat frustrating when they run about like a chicken with it's head chopped off. Still, I look forward to seeing what mischief I can get into with the "new" henchies as I too, have given up completely on the PuGs.