Heroes should be spread out more efficiently

Please see my suggestion here:
Guild Wars Wiki - Feedback: Heroes shouldn't be so close to each other.

Please read the link above for the rationale. Any improvement suggestions?
And if you like it, /sign on the talk page!

I corner block a lot, so a formation like this would actually do me more harm than good. On the other hand, having some preset formations would have been a pretty nice feature to have.

I would love the option for 2-3 preset hero formations, which can be cycled/arranged like displays in HoM.

not signed. Like being said, it is hard to find a pug already. making it even more easy to play with heroes would only make it harder. instead of trying to change a game that is designed as mmo in a solo game, it would be better to make playing in a pug more rewarding. If I want to solo play I would play Skryim.

The entire game can be played with heroes. I think that is the perfect balance needed in the current situation (of a dying game, so at one hand you need to keep the mmo aspect as alive as much as possible, on the other hand one shouldn't be blinded for reality).

Thanks Madriel and Whatway, I first thought of asking for different formations, but thought it would be silly. I'm glad others think it would be a good idea too! I've changed the suggestion based on your feedback so let me know if that's better.

@Akelarumi
No one will force you to solo. If you've read the suggestion link you would have seen that this is for casual players who might not have time to wait for a PUG, or a PUG might not be available.

Like you, I also prefer to PUG instead of playing with heroes. I really love playing with other people! But a lot of times because I'm busy with life, I am forced to play during odd hours where no one is on, or when doing Zaishen quests, I might pick up the quest, but not be able to do it until 3 days later when no one is doing that quest anymore.

I'm sure there are many others in this situation... parents of young children... people with busy jobs... and so on.

I respectfully propose that the above is why MMOs stay a niche market. Fun will always be a subjective term. People play games with people they like. In games where you have a fixed number of participants, you'll find games with lower player counts are played considerably more than those with higher ones. More often than not, players modify (or design) the game so that participants can vary. Having worked in a game store for quite a few years, games that had participants from 2-7 sold CONSIDERABLY better than those with a larger fixed count.

With this in mind, if you personally prefer to attack an RPG encounter with other humans to converse with, that's cool. You will find like-minded humans to do the same with. What you're proposing though is basically forcing other humans to your play style, because they otherwise will have to sift through grief to do this. This same premise caused EQ to fail to its competitors. I've always assumed GW subscribed to this school just because it's 7+ years old and nobody felt like spending the time to modernize it.

Heroes could be made to be considerably better with minimal effort. The fact that they unlimbered the max-hero count, but haven't put in additional flags from the 3 goes to show their stance on it. Formations would also go a long way. Changing the AI to support the Monster AI (like the HM version) as the heroes seem to use a neutered AI.

I payed for a good portion of my university fees writing modules for WoTC/TSR. The extra effort and time to build a module designed to scale to the players was ALWAYS worth it and well received.

IMO at least, games should be about having fun. People will get together to play games or not as desired. Giving them the tools to do that helps them to socialize as best fits their needs. Forcing people together just makes for bitterness and drives people away. I look forward to the future when MMO developers get around to learning what table top, sport and card players learned a few hundred years ago.

Formations would be nice. Personally, I'd rather have AI scripting (like KoTOR or Dragon Age), but formations, 7 flags, and the Monster AI would go a long way.

Last time someone suggested to change the heroes ANET broke them and they were completely useless. So no, not unless ANET can do it without breaking them, do not hold your breath on that one.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/u...0505043p2.html

From about page two on will recount the fiasco back in march.

This thread isn't about whether Anet can implement features bug-free or not. This thread is about my suggestion on how to improve the hero formation. So please don't derail the conversation.

What do you think of my suggestion, Tullzinki, do you think it would be an improvement over the current formation, where heroes are nearly close enough to shake hands?

Looks like a wonderful idea and I would love not having to babysit the heroes during AOE attacks. BUT, ANET has already shown they cannot change the heroes without screwing them up. See the link in my other post.

As I said before no, until ANET can prove they will not break the game making what seemed to be a minor change.

I think without a pull-down to select it, that formation could cause as many problems as the current one. If you're trying to walk through an area without vanquishing, the heroes would be spread out more when they started to walk, which means they would stray more. If you had a rit and MM (or multiple MM) you'd have a huge column of aggro trailing behind you.

Another problem is, if you end up with healers on the wings, they have a tendency to run away from combat (even if you have them set on attack). They run for an aggro bubble or so, so they'd end up basically "double-wide" on aggro. This could be remedied if the Heroes could be change to run back towards the group and/or if they're a healer, to just stand and heal instead of running and dying.

It'd be really cool if you could basically flag it like Total War, where you not only had a formation, but the formation adjusted based on unit type. I know that's asking a bit much, but it would be great.

@Tullzinski, this wouldn't change their behavior/AI, only their placement.
@ProjectMercy, I'm worried about that as well, having heroes aggro everything when you just want to run somewhere.

So I thought of this:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb... al_formations
It would give different buttons to pick a formation. If you want to use the formation we have in GW1 at the moment, you just don't pick a formation. Do you think that solve the problem?

I hadn't thought about the monk problem. I was hoping that if the healers were at the back [see note], they wouldn't get attacked at all, or atleast not often enough to be an annoyance.

Note: Since in my suggestion says heroes should fill in from the back and from opposite sides, players would instinctively add their healers in spot 1 and 2, right? I'm thinking that way they wouldn't get attacked at all, hence wouldn't run around like headless chickens.

A little constructive criticism on that: You can only individually flag the first 3 heroes, and set keybinds to micromanage the skills of same. That already forces people to load certain heroes on the first three slots, and having party list determine where they sit in your proposed formations would be even more limiting.

That might make akelarumi happy, though.

A simple "scatter" flag would be amazing. Probably quite easy to implement. All it has to do is make sure everyone in your party is outside adjacent range to each other.

Yeah I know that already, the point of this suggestion is to make the heroes be far enough from each other that I don't have to flag them individually.

At the moment, heroes already go in a certain position depending on their party member number so this wouldn't really be any different.

Even so, the heroes at the back would still be able to attack enemies because they are in range. If they need to move forward, they will, as they do now.

(Or did I misunderstand what you wrote?)

You mean if you want them to spread out a bit, you click the flag; if you want them to bunch up together, then you click again?
That's sounds pretty interesting! Do you mind if I add it as an option on the Wiki page?

Sure ^__12char__^

I've long found it ironic that you're supposed to be this great warrior, leading and teaching your heroes....... and you don't have the most basic formations. At the moment, you're not a great warrior or an epic leader, you're a bumbling buffoon without the least grasp of basic combat.

or

/signed

not signed

As with any implementaion of this has led in the past of a wide range of implications.

As the agro bubble was in the past and mensioned above.

just like some people dont know the difference with the seting arrangements on heros like attck/defend ect,

There is no problem with the current set up to warrent something that may suit someones own playstyle.

as the saying is.. it it aint broke why try to fix it...if no problems exist.

Maybe I'm not fully understanding what you wrote.
I assume from the above that, in order for a player to have heroes take up a specific formation, they'd have to load them in a certain order, following what you say here by loading their squishy monks in party slots 1 and 2. But if a person wants to keyboard micro other heroes in those slots, they would not be able to take full advantage of the formation order.

This seems like a simple, very elegant solution.

I like this suggestion. The lack of formations makes playing with heroes a repetitive flagging chore. To be fair, it's better than henchmen era party controls(pre-NF). I also would like a scatter button, and that has been suggested on Guru before. I don't know if there is a suggestion on the wiki for that.

I'd probably add a few formations, like inverting the pyramid shown, and another pyramid formation with the party flag centered in a triangle comprised of the individual flags. A changing state pyramid formation button could possibly cycle through these different pyramid formations, with a similar change of icon on the interface.

The current flags seem to have slightly different behavior: flags 1-3 function slightly different from the party flag. Heroes in 1-3 stay in their flagged spot until engaged in combat, while allies in the party flag change position relative to the player(s) in the party.

Please feel free to use any of my comments in your suggestion on the wiki.

You use to be able to get scatter effect by flagging heroes back slightly and unflagging when you engage. The update caused heroes to queue moving to formation around you before initiating scattering behavior. I don't really care about flagging formations when programming kiting and scattering behavior would make for smarter AI instead of pushing it on to the player. This is like trying to put a band-aid on the problem.