Curse

Avarre · Jul 02, 2006, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Tbh anyone who changes secondaries alot and has the skill points to purchase multiple skills on all classes should be able to afford them... I wouldn't care if the price lowered (it wouldn't hurt me at all), so long as we all get retroactive cash back. If you think paying 50k is BS, well... I've payed 690k, and a change with no return now would be... harsh.

Then again I never got my retroactive 450k for my capped elites, so most likely I'd just have to take the hit. I don't like the idea of PvE char skills becoming all unlocked (skill points are there for a reason), but a reduction of skill cost on an unlocked skill, as mentioned, would be cool.

EDIT: at second post

Yeah. And if I want all greens, I should get them from ascalon grawls. And if I want to get r12, I should get fame for kills in RA. And if I want to have fow armor, the price should be reduced.

See where this heads? Asking for something to be made easier because 'if I want to do it easy I should be able to' is a slippery slope, and a very bad one at that.

Loviatar · Jul 02, 2006, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirian

We're so nearly on the same wavelength, but not quite

Instead of having a single maxed main character and some alts with the skills they need for a few builds, I like to spread the gameplay experience across six main characters and max all of them. Only then does the fun of creating builds begin.

It's a habit from playing party-based RPG's of up to six members; I created six personas going back... around 17 years or so now,the same!

i go back to rolling the funny dice when it first came out.

having said that i cant remember a single RPG that let you gain access to all the skills of your other characters (present or deleted) at a later point in the game.

you create a new character you grow and play that character as far as you want not i got this far now give me account wide access to everything i have done so far.

Cirian · Jul 02, 2006, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

(skill points are there for a reason)

Yes, buying new skills. I have a lot outstanding!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Yeah. And if I want all greens, I should get them from ascalon grawls. And if I want to get r12, I should get fame for kills in RA. And if I want to have fow armor, the price should be reduced.

Those are all cosmetic changes.

Greens, Rank and FoW have no effect on the way your character plays. Skills do, and they have to be replaced on the character you want them on.

You can also farm Greens, Rank and the materials and cash for FoW on any character you like, then give them to any of your characters, but not skills.

Let me think. I've seen a L1 in 15k. There's nothing to stop a L1 Emperor's Hero as the title is inherited. There's nothing to stop a L1 wielding Greens. At least I'm asking people to Ascend!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

having said that i cant remember a single RPG that let you gain access to all the skills of your other characters (present or deleted) at a later point in the game.

Final Fantasy 7 and 8 come to mind (I mentioned 7 previously)... I guess there are others.

FalconDance · Jul 02, 2006, 11:54 PM // 23:54

Cirian, I admit to being a little confused at your main point. When I 'retire' a character for whatever reason and re-create one, all the skills I have unlocked are still there (if I chose the same primary or secondary as I have already had). Knowing this, I do not see what the difficulty is....unless you are speaking of something like what BahamutKaiser was suggesting: if you've already unlocked /bought a skill, it should be available for the cost of a skill point only subsequently, an idea I would whole-heartedly agree with!

Personally, I much prefer the way Factions handles skill acquisition. Your avatar only receives core skills and then must choose which others to obtain. A price tag on each tends to make most people a little choosier. Prophecies' assignation of skills at random for quest rewards left me with a multitude of skills I did not want, had no intention of obtaining, and never used.

Lady Lozza · Jul 03, 2006, 02:50 AM // 02:50

Hmm, I kinda get where the OP is coming from. Though I still think elites should be capped on each character. I've stopped deleting and remaking most of my char because it is just such a waste of money to buy skills, armour, etc. Instead, when I want a change, I reroll my pvp char as a pve char and run around as a low level for a little while.

Having said that I've played a lot of L2X and I really love how skills cost skill points, not gold as well. The OP also has a point that PvP players can unlock skills with faction and have them available to all PvP characters. Furthermore in terms of faction, the skills really aren't all that expensive. I would love for skills to cost skill points only. However I think a number of things would have to be changed to:
1) make skill points harder to get, or
2) make skills cost more than 1 skill point.
Elites should still have to be capped. Signets of Capture should still be BOUGHT - 1k each.

AW Lore · Jul 03, 2006, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirian

Final Fantasy 7 and 8 come to mind (I mentioned 7 previously)... I guess there are others.

what you mentioned about final fantasy 7 was the materia change, that you grow the materia, and then you could trade it to another teammember, like heal materi from tifa to aeris when you get aeris for healing, and then from aeris to tifa so that tifa does the healing when aeris leaves the team.

well, guess what? you can do that, to some extent.
w/mo has all skills unlocked, goes and changes his secondary to mesmer, unlocks all skills, and then decides to go back to mo secondary, changes and voila, you have your skills back, just like changing materia.

there are few games that let you have all what you got, want an example?
resident evil 4, you finish the game, you start another game over the same saved data, and you could use all what you have acquired on that saved data.

Tales of Symphonia. once you finish the game, you can start another game loading the saved data of the finished archive, and you can get a few goodies at the start.

and that is implemented on the actual game, to some extent , you can take your lvl 20 with all skills to do previous missions.

now, if you make a new, no matter what game, you have to start over zero.

if you select the option "new game" on resident evil 4, you start with the basic stuff. if you select the option "new game" on Tales of Symphonia, you start with nothing.

if you select a made character on GW, you can "start" from the beggining with everything. if you select "make new" character on GW, then you start with nothing.

seems pretty well to me.

Gorebrex · Jul 03, 2006, 06:35 AM // 06:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Navaros

Original poster is right: there is no reason why PVE characters should have to again acquire skills that the player has already unlocked on other PVE characters. That is Grind with a capital G. It's not fun, and it's not supposed to be what the game is about. Original poster's idea would make rolling new characters a lot more fun, as opposed to agonizing when one think's of all the skills he'd have to grind to get again even though they have already been acquired on another character.

Anything that reduces grind and makes the game more fun is worth putting in.

/signed

It sounds less like fun, and more like, "Im just too lazy to to go skill hunting again. I dont want to actually earn the skills my character has, I want to do it once, then have the ones I earned handed to my other chars, so I dont have to work for it." Ive got 4 character. and I enjoy doing the quests for my skills. Now that I know better how they work, I might take one when its earned, or I might just do a rebuild for a mission I know would be easier with a certain skill. Nothing against you, but I dont see it as "grinding" at all.

Cirian · Jul 03, 2006, 10:21 PM // 22:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by AW Lore

what you mentioned about final fantasy 7 was the materia change, that you grow the materia, and then you could trade it to another teammember, like heal materi from tifa to aeris when you get aeris for healing, and then from aeris to tifa so that tifa does the healing when aeris leaves the team.

well, guess what? you can do that, to some extent.
w/mo has all skills unlocked, goes and changes his secondary to mesmer, unlocks all skills, and then decides to go back to mo secondary, changes and voila, you have your skills back, just like changing materia.

That's more like changing the materia on a single character... not swapping materia between characters.

What I'm suggesting would be more like capping a skill on one character, and having it appear on your Ascended PvE characters in addition to your PvP characters. PvP characters already automatically gain any skills your PvE characters learn by the way.

Now people may complain "But your other characters have different lives! Why should they share anything at all? You start from nothing!", but every other resource (weapons, cash, materials for armour, runes, fame etc) are freely transferable between PvE characters already. They are not separate, they are all account members who share many things.

Account members are like your own little family of characters that share most things already. On my account, my characters are either friends, have a master/servant relationship or are married. Each to their own, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AW Lore

there are few games that let you have all what you got, want an example?
resident evil 4, you finish the game, you start another game over the same saved data, and you could use all what you have acquired on that saved data.

Tales of Symphonia. once you finish the game, you can start another game loading the saved data of the finished archive, and you can get a few goodies at the start.

and that is implemented on the actual game, to some extent , you can take your lvl 20 with all skills to do previous missions.

now, if you make a new, no matter what game, you have to start over zero.

if you select the option "new game" on resident evil 4, you start with the basic stuff. if you select the option "new game" on Tales of Symphonia, you start with nothing.

if you select a made character on GW, you can "start" from the beggining with everything. if you select "make new" character on GW, then you start with nothing.

seems pretty well to me.

Great examples!

You have made a mistake on the Guild Wars example though. Let me show you:

When you make a new PvE character, they carry over any PvP titles and fame you may have, they are automatically placed in the guild your account is tied to, and they shortly get access to your account's shared storage, at which point they load themselves up with cash, materials for armour and shiny weapons collected by your other characters in a process called "twinking".

That's a character with nothing? No it isn't! Your account is one continuous "save game", and it stores many resources. The only resource not transferable are skills, and I want to do something about that by making your unlocked skills automatically available to all the Ascended characters on your account.

If you truly want a new character starting from scratch in Guild Wars, you make a new account.

Dougal Kronik · Jul 03, 2006, 10:35 PM // 22:35

Cirian, why don't you just ask for your PvP characters to be allowed into the PvE world?

Age · Jul 03, 2006, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Lozza

Hmm, I kinda get where the OP is coming from. Though I still think elites should be capped on each character. I've stopped deleting and remaking most of my char because it is just such a waste of money to buy skills, armour, etc. Instead, when I want a change, I reroll my pvp char as a pve char and run around as a low level for a little while.

Having said that I've played a lot of L2X and I really love how skills cost skill points, not gold as well. The OP also has a point that PvP players can unlock skills with faction and have them available to all PvP characters. Furthermore in terms of faction, the skills really aren't all that expensive. I would love for skills to cost skill points only. However I think a number of things would have to be changed to:
1) make skill points harder to get, or
2) make skills cost more than 1 skill point.
Elites should still have to be capped. Signets of Capture should still be BOUGHT - 1k each.

There are those that want to use thier PvE char. to PvP in as most do.It is just a matter of changing secoundaries anyway if anyone saw my thread on Skilltrader not charm where you can trade skill not very usefull due to nerfage.

Emik · Jul 03, 2006, 11:09 PM // 23:09

/unsigned

Making previously acquired skills available to even ascended new PvE characters will encourage more running from Ascalon to the Desert.
It's already getting out of hand to have to play Sanctum Cay with a level 2 monk coz he can't be bothered doing the storyline again.
There is a reason why you have to complete the missions and primary quests in Factions now.
Making skills available will also have an influence on the economy in the game.
My necro has till thusfar every elite skill there is and almost 4000k XP and i prefer playing with him coz i'm used to him. Not becoz he has all the skills.
I have a character of every profession (2 accounts) and this is what makes me getting used to the specific class.
Ok i had to delete several chars before i had 2 accounts becoz i didn't get used to it or got bored with it or wanted to try another. I always dreaded rerolling it but eventually i did and i always replayed the entire storyline. Why? coz i like it and it gives me a change to see how certain professions (with armor and the likes) are bound to sustain certain damagetypes and areas

Minus Sign · Jul 03, 2006, 11:25 PM // 23:25

How about this: change the skill hunter titles to global and give PvEers a REAL incentive to cap elites.

At level 1 title, skills and skill caps cost 20% less across the board. At level 2? 30; up to 50% at a level 4 title.

500g for skill caps cuts down on the purse load, if not the hassle of banging around fire island waiting for your cap to spawn.

Or a seperate title can be made just for PvEers. Working like "Kind of a big thing", you gain this title when 4 of your characters have achieved Protector of Tyria/Cantha, etc and it reduces the cost of skills as well. The more characters you have that get one title, the more the second levels until you max at levl 5 again with 50% skill costs. It also gives better players more incentive to return to early levels of the game, helping newbs.

Lastly, to reduce running around all over the world--and getting annoyed that your cap won't spawn on the map for the 7th damn RUN!--add a previous suggestion to the game, an elite skill trainer available only in UW and only after completing a hellish mission. These skills cost 3000g, are not effected by any titles, and since you are not in a town, you can only buy the caps, so they will have no effect on your current game.

Beat_Go_Stick · Jul 03, 2006, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gorebrex

It sounds less like fun, and more like, "Im just too lazy to to go skill hunting again. I dont want to actually earn the skills my character has, I want to do it once, then have the ones I earned handed to my other chars, so I dont have to work for it." Ive got 4 character. and I enjoy doing the quests for my skills. Now that I know better how they work, I might take one when its earned, or I might just do a rebuild for a mission I know would be easier with a certain skill. Nothing against you, but I dont see it as "grinding" at all.

Once? Once??? Man, I've done most of these quests 5-7 times! I don't think "lazy" is the right word

Let me ask everyone opposed this question: How would allowing people access to their previously unlocked skills affect you? Just have an NPC who you can talk to after ascending who will give you your skills. If you want to play through again, please do so. Personally, I wouldn't like to drag my Chapter 5 cahracter back to Tyria to do a quest for the 10th time just to get the skill I want.

Mind you, I'm frickin' wealthy so I wouldn't bother doing that anyway. but I also recognize the fact that not everyone has 150-200k to throw into a new character at the drop of a hat.

Emik · Jul 03, 2006, 11:58 PM // 23:58

Again... this would only encourage low levellers to be run all over giving you no help what so ever only to make sure they ascend and get their skills. That sounds like a load of rubbish to me

As for dragging my Chapter 5 character to Tyria just to get SS for instance would let me see how my current build is able to sutain the other worlds and thus makes it worth to actually go over there and make some effort.

Gorebrex · Jul 04, 2006, 12:24 AM // 00:24

[QUOTE=Beat_Go_Stick]Once? Once??? Man, I've done most of these quests 5-7 times! I don't think "lazy" is the right word

Let me ask everyone opposed this question: How would allowing people access to their previously unlocked skills affect you? Just have an NPC who you can talk to after ascending who will give you your skills. If you want to play through again, please do so. Personally, I wouldn't like to drag my Chapter 5 cahracter back to Tyria to do a quest for the 10th time just to get the skill I want.

Mind you, I'm frickin' wealthy so I wouldn't bother doing that anyway. but I also recognize the fact that not everyone has 150-200k to throw into a new character at the drop of a hat.[/QUOTE]
Apparently because you "need" a certain skill

Me, Im lvl 20 ascended, and Im not even sure I have any elites yet(have to check). Dont really care much, doing fine without them. I looked at http://www.xennon.co.uk/eliteskills/#necro to find out which skills are elites, and where they are, and out of those 25, theyres only 15 Im interested in.

2 Words.... RUN-NERS! I hate seeing lvl 5-8s in the desert! I once almost had a heart attack when I saw a lvl 1 there! Thats just the DEFINITION of lame, pure and simple. I dont care if youve got 20 accounts, and all but 1 hasnt finished the game, its still dumb. Um, by that time, Ill bet it'll be removed, or changed, or YOU COULD BUY IT! Unless you mean an elite, in which case do the damn quest again! Good Lord! Some of these quests Ive been on more than 10 times already, and it dont bother me at all, really. I get tired of doing it over and over again, yes, but if I "take a break" from that quest, do another, or go farming, then come back, its not a problem.
Im glad of that, because theyre are many who dont realize it.

Cirian · Jul 04, 2006, 01:09 PM // 13:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dougal Kronik

Cirian, why don't you just ask for your PvP characters to be allowed into the PvE world?

Auto-L20's? Er, no. There's a balance between convenience and tedium, and it's easy to make arguments at one extreme or the other.

Something really tedius for example, would be if you couldn't share items or money between your characters - imagine the uproar! There were Assassins and Ritualists in FoW within a week or two of Factions coming out, and I'll bet they didn't farm a single ecto for themselves.

Now imagine if you couldn't share skills between your characters and imagine the tedium... oh, you can't share them, and boy is it tedius after 13 months of collecting the same ones over and over. So here I am proposing something I believe to be convenient, while not overly easy (like getting every skill for free on a L1, without needing to collect them even once - now that would be silly)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emik

Again... this would only encourage low levellers to be run all over giving you no help what so ever only to make sure they ascend and get their skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gorebrex

2 Words.... RUN-NERS! I hate seeing lvl 5-8s in the desert! I once almost had a heart attack when I saw a lvl 1 there!

The runners and their low level customers have been a long standing issue in Prophecies already. Anyway, if a lowbie wants to Ascend they have to beat their L20 Doppleganger in a 1 vs 1 battle, so good luck to them if they think they can do it!

If anything, it might encourage more people to Ascend instead of turn up at Ice caves or Iron Mines un-Ascended. I'm pretty sure I've even seen a screenshot of a very low level character at the Ring of Fire mission, and some people do stuff like that for the shock value.

As for Factions, running is locked down pretty hard.

Stockholm · Jul 04, 2006, 01:22 PM // 13:22

To the OP:
Great so now we will have Lvl 1 toons with elit skills, get real, this is the most ridiquless recuest I have read so far on Guru.

Fitz Rinley · Jul 04, 2006, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Bilateralrope,

I understand the differance. I have been mostly PvE. Now I refuse to actively play because of Faction, Favor, and the general treatment of individualism in Factions. So, that is my personal stance in this argument. But I don't think you are looking at the change in the game created by Balthazar Faction.

PvP players used to have to grind through PvE play to get their skills. They whined about it and got an alternative system for skills acquisition to allow all of their play to be separate from PvE play. (The reverse is not true for PvE play.) Now, they want PvE play to further conform to what they are familiar with, easy acquisition of builds. (In GvG one can acquire a build an hour or so I am lead to understand. In regular PvP play, a build a day may be unlocked.) In PvE, builds were nearly impossible to put together as skills were scattered across Tyria with a shotgun. The new Cantha system corrects this for any E-bay gold-digger.

And when I deleted all 12 of my characters it was because GW has failed to make good on the ever delayed storage promise, kept PvP control of UW and FoW access, and done nothing about the Faction system they created which I hold eternally immoral. It is also because of the "improved challenge" of 12-20 enemy mobs that cannot be separated resulting in kill-1-rez -15 dp, kill-1-rez -30 dp, kill-1-rez -45dp, kill-1-rez -60dp, kill-1-rez -60dp, ..... format now considered requisite and normal.

However, given that ANet seems to be promoting underhand economies at this point for faction, items, titles, skills, etc. I do not understand why anyone who would still bother playing the game has any problem doing anything against the EULA or not to get anythying they want accomplished. GW's signals are so mixed, and their promisses so unkept, the only thing that seems to keep more millionairs from existing, having any skills they want, and doing anything they want, is the inability to steal mommy or daddy's credit card more often. That is how I feel after 9 months in the game.

Fitz

Skyy High · Jul 04, 2006, 03:48 PM // 15:48

Honestly, go cry about it. ANet is never changing the system, because it is a very important money sink. There aren't too many large money sinks in the game as is; they're never getting rid of the most used one.

Why is this even a complaint? Do you honestly need EVERY skill on EVERY new char? I just rolled a warrior, even though I deleted one a few months ago. I have every Prophecies and Core skill unlocked, but I didn't hop over to LA and buy every skill available, because I knew that would be wasted money. I actually thought about my build in advance, and bought what I needed. Heaven forfend you think about what you need before wasting money.

If, on the other hand, you just want every one of your chars to have every bloody skill in the game, you're also fresh outta luck. That is an unnecessary goal, and as such it will remain a hard and tedious goal. If you really want to remake PvE chars repeatedly because you don't like their looks/name, you should be clamoring for a stylist, not a complete revamp of the skill unlocking system. Otherwise, you need to remember that, while unlike any other online RPG out there, Guild Wars is STILL an RPG, and you shouldn't be deleting your PvE chars on a whim after putting hundreds of hours into him without being ready to put hundreds of hours into his replacement.

I haven't even been talking about elites, so here I go: elites will remain only attainable by capping. Period. We don't have that many long-term goals that are actually attainable, and finding and capping our elites is one of the main ones. However, if you find it a grind to cap "useless" elites...don't cap them! Why you would want "useless" skills instantly available to your chars is beyond me; you'll only ever use a few elites anyway. Find them online, and go cap 'em, it really isn't that hard. If you change the system, you gimp the Skill Hunter title track, which really is too high of a tradeoff to having elites available that you'll never use.

Fitz - PvP players now have the option to never have to play PvE. PvE players have ALWAYS had the option to never play PvP. It was only fair.

Fitz Rinley · Jul 04, 2006, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Skyy High,

The game is not, nor has it ever managed to be, a Role Playing Game. It is just an instanced game with gaming points of massive access to fellow gamers.

In Tyria, it was normal to develop access to every skill in the game. One began with a dummy dualed under each of the primaries and pushed them thru the game as fast as possible to open all skills. This gave ALL early players fast and easy access to any build of any class at any time they wished for any kind of PvPvE play. Then GvG builds were easy to develop because these Beta and initial players already had everything from the beginning of the game. Now you claim they should not have anything, after the so-called elite, controlling, established, precedent setting, standard bearers with their crystaline swords, million gold accounts from every early exploit before it was nerfed, etc., etc. should not be followed after by those who have had them as the example of success. Just get your 8 skills and go. Ignore the history of and in the game.

This is now the problem. Major players are going to lose interest if they cannot be major players. New players are going to lose interest if they cannot practice to the effect of major players. (They must begin with builds targetted at opponents that show them how to build to targets.)

Doing away with skills acquisition from quests was a bad idea. It should not have been completely nerfed. It should have been kept so that one could pick a build skill to use against an enemy, and if it did not work, try another, then the quests would end when you chose one to be permanent in your skill list. But it should have been working from build perspectives instead of the randome skill perspectives so far employed. The traders somewhat make up for this, but do little to help the new player.

I will admit there are skills I have found absolutely useless. I have seen a very few use them effectively where most cannot. They are not used often. I ran a water mage for sometime, though many find this too challenging to do. I used my Ele/Nec as Blood and Fire heal support as well, through Frost Gate. I have used a large variaty of builds accross a large spectrum of areas. (Though I find single class, or Class with Heal the only effective builds since it all comes down to Dmg/Sec over Dmg Mgt/Sec.)

As to the other, PvE players are still dependant on PvP players for control of game content areas. It was never fair. If something like Favor is going to be fair then PvP players should only be able to purchase elite skills within a 10 minute window after the same PvE group kills both Glint and Shiro consecutively without defeat or use max item power within a 2 hour window after the same conditions. Both being conditional for their region alone of course, and put all other regions under handicap or deny them access to arenas if their region has not defeated Glint and or Shiro in the last 10 minutes.

Fitz

Edit in on Elites: I would say elites should not cost 1k but more like 3k to 5k. But there are many Elites, especially ranger, I would not give you a gold for. I do not have a problem with Elites being available thru traders. It would have been some reason to PvP besides waiting for friends I used to play with to get on line.