User talk:Ryan Galen/Archive-1

Imagining companions
Following the instructions over at Gaile Gray’s Guild Wars 2 Talk page  Guild Wars 2 Suggestion Archive, I’m posting my full thoughts on companions in Guild Wars 2 here rather then making an obscenely long post over on that talk page. I’ve made long posts here before, but in this case, but those where just a few sentences that looked longer then I thought they would be in my head. This... is going to be really long since I’m giving my full thoughts on the subject.

For those who for some reason are running into this on my talk page first, please note that these are ‘‘mostly’’ only what I personally imagine and hope Guild Wars 2 will be like in regards to companions. I have no more idea about what is actually coming in Guild Wars 2 more then you in any respect, and I’m really just blabbing here in some vain hope to influence the game while it’s still in the design concept. I know it sounds vain, but it is all any of us are really trying to do with all this talk.

For those who actually followed the link from the Guild Wars 2 talk page, thank you for reading my full thought. I would request that you keep your responses to Gaile’s Guild Wars 2 talk page, but it is only a request.

So, on with the thoughts...

What we know so far
As of yet, the small article or two we’ve received concerning Guild Wars 2 has actually told us decent amount concerning companions in Guild Wars 2, all without going into as many words as I’m about to go into now. What we know is:
 * Instead of henchmen or heroes, Guild Wars 2 will have a form of NPC assistance to players that shall be known as companions.
 * Companions will be similar to heroes in regards to their player customization.
 * Companions will not count against the party limit when human players are grouping together.
 * Players will have the option of bringing only one companion with them.
 * While not stated as such, we know that each class is being reworked to be more viable in solo combat. So in theory a single companion might be all the backup one needs to survive outside of missions and dungeons.
 * When a player does not bring a companion with them, they will be buffed in compensation.
 * The degree and nature of this buff is unknown. It can be assumed that the buff is mostly to help with party play instead of solo play. This way player can decide between coming into a player group buffed, or coming in with a companion whose skills further synergizes with your own and/or your teammates. Also players won’t be punished if the rest of the party forces them to play without their companion due to unreasonable AI prejudice.

How companions should work
Companions should work in many ways just like heroes. Meaning we should be able to customize their weapons, armor, and skill bar. There are two ways I think companions should differ from heroes other then what has already been stated.

Companions should not be able to select secondary professions. They don’t count against our party limits, so they shouldn’t be as versatile in builds as a player character. It certainly won’t hurt them in their role as helpers, it will just help give a reason to why they’re working under another adventurer rather then being an adventurer themselves.

Companions should also have a very small specialized inventory. Nothing bigger then a belt pouch mind you, and only capable of storing things like weapons, off hand items, and possibly runes. This way players won’t need to use up their own inventory space in order hold alternate gear for their companions, making it easy to switch a necromancer from blood to death, or a warrior from a sword and shield to a shield and spear.

Another interesting possibility, though one I’m not sure if I want to support since it conflict slightly with the no secondary profession idea above and with other ideas I have further on, is giving companions access to skills the character can’t necessarily use. Meaning asura companions of a human player can still use their asura only spells and norn companions can become the bear. Companions of a nonplayable race could have options open to them as well. How to obtain these skills are a pretty diverse array. We could have companion skill trainers, quests, or just giving the companions those skills when they’re recruited. Some mix of the three should be most enjoyable.

Now, ultimately the mechanics like this are small in comparison to certain other points. For instance, I think we should have more then one companion to choose from. Not just from the beginning, in fact certainly not from the beginning, but over time we develop a pool of companions we can select from in order to have different types of support in solo play and try out different synergies in party play.

With that said, I think companions can be separated into two different pools depending on when they are recruited. The slightly more generic starter companion, and the more flavorful optional companion.

Starter companions
The idea behind a starter companion is that when you just begin player, your options are limited to what you can do. Your attribute point pool is small, and you really need to focus on one of your professions primary rolls to be able to do anything good at all. With this idea, the designers should give you a companion that will be able to back up your companion in the field of combat.

Now, by generic, I don’t mean boring. I see the game designers doing some diverse stuff here if they want to: Asura with golems, necromancers with minions, hunters with pets (charr hunters with devourers of course), and sylvari with jungle creatures (plants and insects, no devourers or trolls). These are anything but generic, but everyone of a certain race and profession combination will have the same thing and they most likely only have story directly connected with them following your character.

Now, it is here on the starter companions where I expect the most options for customization on the appearance of our companions. Possibly just the colors on some of the more diverse options, but there is no reason that we can’t customize the appearance of the playable race companions completely when that companion is a starter companion. You only get one starter companion after all, so it wouldn’t be an excessive amount of data storage to allow the starter companions a deeper level of visual customization.

Optional Companion
Now the optional companions are first and foremost just that: optional. A player doesn’t need to get them on his character if he or she doesn’t want to. Of course, players can spend all their lives in PreSearing Ascalon if they want, which is ok but you miss out on the rest of the game if that is your only character.

Aside from being optional, the optional companions should also have a lot more story attached to them then the starter companions. The starter companions follow you around almost just because that is what they do. (And in the case of golems and minions, it is what they do.) While still of a lesser class of hero then the player’s character, optional heroes are still found out about in the greater world with their own dreams and desires. It should be a small solo quest/mission just to recruit them, with possible further solo quests/missions further one just with them.

As for the selection of these companions, I think there should be one of each race/profession combination, but that each player character can only recruit one of each profession. Meaning that the optional companions of the same profession would be mutually exclusive of each other. And since choosing one denies you the other choices, the recruitment quest/mission should give you a feel for the flavor of each option before you make your choice.

Let’s use a quest possible quest for the ranger companions as an example. In the northern part of the Maguuma Jungle, an open conflict is taking place between a lone Ascalon marksmen and a charr stalker. Any human who still claims heritage from Ascalon hate the charr, while few charr would back down from a one on one fight against a ‘’’mouse’’’. In observation of the conflict are a norn tracker and a sylvari ranger. The norn wishes to tests his mettle against both these combatants, but doesn’t want to wait for the end of what is turning out to be a stale mate. The sylvari meanwhile wants to stop the fighting entirely since she can feel the pain that such a prolonged conflict is causing the forest. Will the player character assist either the human or charr gain an advantage in their conflict, help the norn even the odds in taking on both rangers at once, or help the sylvari find a less (or possibly more) violent solution by rounding up jungle wildlife to chase off the fighting rangers?

Ultimately, I think such a system would be flavorful and interesting, while logistically keeping things in check by preventing one character from having to manage five different companions of the same class. A useless endeavor since we can only take one of them out at a time anyway.

--Ryan Galen 03:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)