Henchman Ideas(And a few misc. ones)

[Crimson Ilia]

#1: A "hold ground" command that makes the henchmen stay and do nothing but defend themselves against enemies within range.

#2: An "attitude"-tab. Like in many RPG's and strategy games where you can tell those under your command how to act by, say, setting them to "Cowardly," "Aggressive," "Defensive" or so forth.

#3: A skill list, so you can see exactly what the different NPC's can do. Perhaps even some alternate skill sets for each. Because while the current NPC's are nice for some parties, they just do not work with other skill combos. And it's not always that your guild is online or it's possible to find a decent pick-up party.

#4: Perhaps more varied NPC's? I mean, the NPC's aren't any of the Chosen, they're more like mercenaries, so why not make them fit the area? Perhaps White Mantle Seekers and Justiciars at Gates of Kryta, D'alessio and the Temple of Tolerance, maybe dwarves while you're in the Shiverpeaks, etc.




Now for the Miscellaneous ideas.

#5: How about we get to see Aidan, Mhenlo, Devona and Cynn a bit more throughout the game? Their showing up outside of Augury Rock, and later becoming NPC's comes totally out of the blue. Make them NPC's a lot earlier, or at least somehow make them part of the plot.

#6: "Extinction Tracking." Spawning of creatures in PvE zones is slightly randomized, so I got to thinking, and this would also help prevent certain creatures getting "over-farmed" for items: Have the server track which mosnters get killed the most. If, say, the Caromi Tengu in Nebo Terrace are suffering five times as many losses as the Gypsie Ettins, for whatever reason, have less and less of them start spawning until the trend reverses. If they all get "killed off," have them start spawning again after a while in some corner of the zone.

#7: In case any NCSoft/Arenanet employees are reading this, I'm restating my desire for some large PvE "arena" areas, the details of the idea are in the "gw the next chapter wishlist" thread, but the basic idea is the desire to either fight off huge waves of enemies that get increasingly stronger, or to battle my way into a fort of heavily entrenched enemies with healers, rez priests, etc.

#8: A choice to have a "democratic" guild, where members can vote to demote/kick other members. Just in case someone wants that, I think it could be an interesting change.

Any comments, anyone?

[Crimson Ilia]

I also had an idea #9, but it was large enough that I felt it should have it's own post.

Basically, my main problem with most PvE areas is that the enemies are usually so damn easy to deal with due to their limited AI. Most enemies in PvE areas just charge at you as soon as you get close enough, then fight to the death.

So I propose a massive change to this which, again, is seperated into points. Some of which could be implemented alone.

#1: Have badly wounded members of almost-dead groups run away in a random direction, trying to get away from the PC's. If they meet another group of the same race as them, or of their race's allies(Skales and Mergoyles, for example, seem to work together.), then they join that group. If one group gets large enough from enough new joiners, then it may split up.

#2: More randomization of patrol patterns, more changes. Sometimes enemies are far too easy to sneak past or get on their own due to easily predictable and always-repeated patrol patterns.

#3: Calls for help. If one group is being beaten badly, then it's members might call enemy groups outside of the "detection radius" for help, either while running or standing it's ground. It kinda breaks the illusion when one group is getting viciously murdered, yet another group within plain sight that's looking over at the massacre is just standing around, looking at it's feet and whistling.

#4: Encampments. It seems rather strange that a rather organized enemy force, like the Tengu, Centaurs or Undead, would consist entirely of roving bands, yet no camps or fortifications at all. Again, breaks the illusion a bit for me that they seem to have no strongholds, or even bases of operation for when they are in an area.

#5: Ideally, all patrols in an area would occasionally cycle through one or more camps. Fleeing enemies would, when the initial panic subsided, make for one of their camps and hide there, possibly raising the alarm and increasing the "detection radius" of any patrol passing through there, or any patrol encountering an "alerted" patrol. Maybe a force of raiding Tengu having suffered bad enough losses to the adventurers in Nebo Terrace would start assembling larger groups and combing the area for them, at least for a while.

#6: Making the composition and placement of enemies in areas a hell of a lot more random, in general, would help. It makes replays for new characters, and helping guildmates, pretty boring and tedious, at least after the first time or two, when you already know exactly what is in every area, and where it is.

#7: It is FAR too easy to lure enemies. At least the cleverer enemies, like Mursaat and Forgotten, should be immune to luring, while it would be okay for less bright enemies like Imps, Grawl and Ettins to be easily lured, the same for those which appear to be really hotheaded like the Charr and Stone Summit.

Again, comments would be welcome. Don't bother telling me that most things in this post are crazy, impossible, possibly not even within the limits of the engine and will never get implemented, I know that.

[Crimson Ilia]

Ah, screw it, for a while I'm going to keep dumping my ideas in this one.

Misc. Idea #10: Climbable ladders/ropes. Being able to use ladders and ropes in GvG matches to scale walls might add something more to the whole thing. Clicking on an "enemy" rope or ladder attacks it, they cannot suffer from conditions(Except Burning), but they are extra vulnerable to fire, and the Burning condition will destroy them utterly.

Clicking on a friendly one will start your character climbing. While climbing you cannot attack or cast spells. Crippling will halve your speed of climbing, if what you're climbing is destroyed, you fall and lose 25-50% of your max HP, depending on how far up you were. You also have 20 less armor, to simulate that you're a slow target and holes in your defenses can easily be targetted. You can also elect to jump off, losing you only 10% of max HP, at any point during the climb. Only one or two persons can climb the same rope/ladder at once.

In a GvG or other PvP match, they should either be carried to a point, at which point a grappling hook is thrown/the ladder is raised(Akin to creating vine bridges in the Maguuma.). Alternately, to make it simpler, they could just be long, flat ramps erected from some distance away, which have an anchoring point or such that can be disconnected or destroyed by the defenders, and crossing them is no different from walking.




Misc. Idea #11: Mobile fights. Either sea fights, on ships, where the "ground" below is constantly on the move. I can easily imagine a ship-vs-ship PvP arena where one side is being boarded. The defenders can either win by wrecking the attackers' sails, rudder, etc. and escaping, or by beating up the boarders. Of course, their own would also be at a risk, lowering their chances of escaping if damaged.

Or perhaps just a harbor bombardment where the ships are constantly on the move, trying to evade harbor artillery, and sending off people in longboats to get to shore. It could even be a multi-stage fight.

Defenders win if, at any stage, the main ships are destroyed. Attackers must first destroy the harbor artillery, either with their own ballistae or with their attack teams. Then they must land their people, get the Big Treasure or Kill The King or whatever, then get back to their ships and escape, possibly their spawn point being shunted ahead to the throne/treasure room at that point, and the defenders point then being BEHIND them, between them and their ships, with only NPC's holding the ships for a limited time.



Misc. Idea #12: Indirect PvP/PvE hybrid. Take a long corridor, put a spawn point at each end and a lot of monsters in the middle. Entirely at the middle, put The Big Magical Thing. First team to fight their way through the monsters and get it back to their spawn, or some other point, wins. Perhaps to increase the challenge, and make it less indirect, make it a T-shaped corridor, with the Delivery Point at the end that none of the teams spawned at, and full of monsters, so that the second team could have a chance to hunt them down.

Of course it could also be a center point with more corridors radiating out, to increase the level of challenge and action. Or give each of them teams their own section of corridor with monsters and a Big Item, if it was to be made into more of an indirect race and much less of a fight.

As usual, comment if you feel you have anything pertinent to say.

[Crimson Ilia]

Skill Related Idea #13: Being able to save a skill config. Lots of people have very different skill sets from PvE to PvP, or heck, just from one PvE area or PvP match to another, and arranging your skills back to that winning combo you loved isn't always as easy as it sounds, and it's often a bit of a bother to have to write down your skill combos.

Skill Related Idea #14: As #13, but with skill points, rather than actual skills.

Skill Related Idea #15: More clarity regarding the various skill TYPES. Having some of them called Skills, too, makes it all the more confusing. Like when it says that Distracting Shot disrupts interrupted skills for 20 seconds, is the text talking about all skills, or the Skill type of skills? Does something that affects Spells affect all Spells(Hex, Enchantment, Spells) or only Spell type spells?

[oblivious]

in game when a certain skill affects all skill it means it's afffecting all skill types and when a certain skill affects all spells it means enchantments, hexes, curses, etc.

I think it works this way because you also have skills just affecting hexes,enchantments,etc and would not make sense would it work otherwise.