Curse

Lourens · Feb 15, 2009, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Prophecies already got their pve only skills its called gwen

MithranArkanere · Feb 15, 2009, 06:10 PM // 18:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Owik Gall

The thing with prophecies is that it needs no PvE skills. It's easy enough without them. [...]

The thing about PvE skills is that no one of them is neccesary.
But the more important than that, it's equitableness.

All the other campaigns had end credits areas, Prophecies must had its own.
All the other campaigns have their challenge missions, Prophecies must have its own.
All the other camaigns have their elite areas and Prophecies elite are became 'core' elite area, Prophecies must have its own.
Nightfall added lipsinc, and it was added to previous chapters too.

When a new thing is added with one chapter of the game, and all the subsequent chapters get it too, that means that it's not something unique for that chapter and adding it to previous chapters is a must, so they don't end up left behind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lourens

Prophecies already got their pve only skills its called gwen

The North areas may be close to Prophecies areas, but so does Elona.

EotN it's an expansion for all games, not just Prophecies.

Yawgmoth · Feb 16, 2009, 05:51 AM // 05:51

Prophecies don't lack PvE skills, it's a different game. All campagins are different and have plenty of features unique to them. If one or even 2 campagins have something 3rd one doesn't, it doesn't mean it misses that. It can have something different and unique instead.

Now, More PvE skills = not needed, no matter where would they be put in... if it's just for the sake of more skills. We got more than enough, and better move would be to fix more of existing but crappy ones (but I don't mean SF or Ether Renewal -like fix xD - balance is more important than having more skills)

But more content - GW as a whole game could always use more, more is better, especially when it's not "more of the same" like copying stuff that already exists elsewhere.

And for adding new content Prophecies feels like the best choice for one reason - huge underused space. And if there was really new content to be added like series of quests or mini missions using existing maps with different spawns and a storyline plot added - new skills could make great rewards to make the content worthwhile, and the skills would most likely have to be PvE only (unless the skills were designed mainly to help PvP balance, they would do more bad than good there).

Even for just PvE, the skills would have to be carefully balanced as we don't need even more imba, and should better do something quite unique... it's the hard part: do something unique but not broken. It's not hard to make GW:EN-like PvE skills that just make things only 1 or a few professions did suddenly available for all. Adding something new, cool, unique AND balanced is hard.

So suggestion: add pve skills to prophecies is /fail, better come up with actually good skill ideas, otherwise it's useless.

Oh, and the whole idea with Primary attributes gain from secondary professions based on xp is plain RiDDiculous and /NOTSIGNED obv.

**Marty Silverblade** · Feb 16, 2009, 06:08 AM // 06:08

Balance, etc, aside, I wouldn't mind some PvE skills for the Shining Blade or something. Taking balance in though, you'd need to properly update Proph for it to work (make it harder, etc).

MithranArkanere · Feb 16, 2009, 05:29 PM // 17:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

Prophecies don't lack PvE skills, it's a different game. All campagins are different and have plenty of features unique to them. If one or even 2 campagins have something 3rd one doesn't, it doesn't mean it misses that.

Yes it does, that's why the Prophecies credits area was added.
Factions had no PvE skills, but it got them after Nightfall did.

In this case, it's not just 2 campaigns have it and the 3 doesn't.
It's all the other PvE content have them, including some events and the bonus mission pack, but Propecies is left out.

Prophecies has the greatest number of skills, many armors and some of the best things. But let's face it. It's almost empty in many places: Areas filled with only 2 or 3 kinds of monsters with the same profession, areas where absolutely no quest or mission takes place ever, areas that you only have to be for Vanquising, no real elite areas (the realms of the gods were turned into core areas) almost no Prophecies skins (most of them were turned into core skins, dropping everywhere).

Filling Prophecies with some more stuff when there's time to won't harm anyone.
No one is expecting Anet to change the whole developing schedule to add 10 skills PvE skills earned by exchanging Hero skill points received by making quests for the Shinning Blade.

VinnyRidira · Feb 18, 2009, 02:02 PM // 14:02

I made a suggestion in order to create ideas. Unless GW2 comes in soon simple extra content may be worthwhile. I know that I would love to have secondary profession primary attributes to have extra mixing, but it would possibly be too powerful if done incorrectly, so no doubt it is not on the cards. I also thought PvE only skills would need a progression of levels and so I suggested xp as the table for the skill levels. If you made a char and you have played that char for 6 million plus xp, then maybe that char deserves a higher level PvE skill. They do have double xp weekends already, we just had one. Granted my char with all elites skills is a 6 million plus character already. I know there are elitists who caused DoA to become a graveyard, at this late date why would we not want people running around there in droves. Ursan Blessing is still a good skill but only really gets used for doing Blood washes blood. I feel it has too long a recharge time, a minute on minute off is a pain in the proverbial fundamental orifice. Especially when you are trying to fly through books to max the EoTN skills. Some special cross area prophecies quests may be great for garnering skills.

Coverticus · Feb 19, 2009, 05:51 AM // 05:51

Allow secondaries to use primaries of other professions? Please no - whats the point of having Primaries anymore therefore?

Quote:

Ursan Blessing is still a good skill but only really gets used for doing Blood washes blood. I feel it has too long a recharge time, a minute on minute off is a pain in the proverbial fundamental orifice. Especially when you are trying to fly through books to max the EoTN skills.

Sigh - this skill got nerfed to it's current status specifically because is was overpowered and any Joe could tear through any area without any thinking at all. And you want to add more of these type of game-destroying skills into the mix?

/begin_sarcasm
While we are at it, lets allow characters to have a third profession to break things even more. W/E/N for example. Or allow 2 elites in the skill bar (outside of skill capping). After all, certain foes have these abilities, therefore why shouldn't we?
/end_sarcasm

Just because other campaigns have something another doesn't should not mean that the missing content should therefore be installed to make it fair. Lets have some diversity please. After all, does anyone remember how this game used to be played? Prophecies is nice to go back to from time to time - another grind fest for most is not ideal. And for those of us with chars exceeding 10,20,40,50mill XP - cakewalk. Pop to Prophecies, unlock some new PvE skills and lets all descend into the likes of Urgoz, Deep and UW/FoW and see who can set the new speed records.

Imho - the game should be swinging back to how it used to be. Would make life a lot easier and might stop alot of QQing in the process. Make it a bit more of a challenge again. Such as Elite areas allowing foes to have random builds - off the wall I know but gives an area more of an edge.

VinnyRidira · Feb 19, 2009, 03:21 PM // 15:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terra Jim

Allow secondaries to use primaries of other professions? Please no - whats the point of having Primaries anymore therefore?

Sigh - this skill got nerfed to it's current status specifically because is was overpowered and any Joe could tear through any area without any thinking at all. And you want to add more of these type of game-destroying skills into the mix?

/begin_sarcasm
...
/end_sarcasm

Just because other campaigns have something another doesn't should not mean that the missing content should therefore be installed to make it fair. Lets have some diversity please. After all, does anyone remember how this game used to be played? Prophecies is nice to go back to from time to time - another grind fest for most is not ideal. And for those of us with chars exceeding 10,20,40,50mill XP - cakewalk. Pop to Prophecies, unlock some new PvE skills and lets all descend into the likes of Urgoz, Deep and UW/FoW and see who can set the new speed records.

Imho - the game should be swinging back to how it used to be. Would make life a lot easier and might stop alot of QQing in the process. Make it a bit more of a challenge again. Such as Elite areas allowing foes to have random builds - off the wall I know but gives an area more of an edge.

What is the point of having so many skill and elites?
Why not just have primary professions?
Why make all areas of the game accessible to the people who payed good money to play the game?
Why should Urgoz, DoA and The Deep have more than 20 people visting them daily?
Why should a person be able to play the game with heroes and henchmen?
Why are people so reluctant to play with people they do not know or trust?
Why did they change the game, should we only be able to cap elite spells from living bosses?
Why did the jungle area die, should'nt we have a jungle town in Ventari's refuge?
Why make the game playable to the millions that bought it?
Why did they make Factions give so much more experience than Prophecies?
Why do they have treasure chests in Nightfall, giving so much free cash?

Lets go back to the original plan, lets not evolve the game and add content.

Oh they find new ways to get synergy builds, change the game so they cannot have three necromancers in the party.

Oops some hot team found a way to do Urgoz in 23 minutes. Tragedy. It so surprising to see how many people are doing Urgoz now.

Horror of horror you can power level a character in Faction to level 20 in about 3 hours. Lets stop people making characters in Factions.

Oh my goodness there are people who play this game casually, they must be made to conform to the elitists belief.

MithranArkanere · Feb 19, 2009, 05:41 PM // 17:41

The main reasons for retroactive changes is preventing the feel of emptyness, game breaking and disappointment when a player gets an older campaign after playing the others.

The 'unique' features of Prophecies are:
* A huge worldmap with much less density in content... until the very end, where it gets crowded (maybe too much crowded in some spots). An area than would contain more than 400 monsters and 14 types of monsters of 3 or more races of allegiances, will probably contain much less monsters, types of creatures and races.
* While there are almost no areas in the other regions where no quest is done and most of them have at least 3 quests taking place there, there are many areas in Prophecies where no quest or mission takes place. They are there only for sightseeing and Vanquishing.
* Where you'll get Reward Trophies you can exchange in collectors, being able to choose what you want, you get quite some useless that are even worse than the stuff dropping from monsters around there. Probably only the -50 Grim Cesta is useful at all, and then maybe 1 or 2 interesting or funny.
* A lot of skills and skill quests... but no skills for the foreign professions, so if your favorite character is one of them, you'll mostly get some few skills usable by secondary professions. And if you make the skill quests before changing professions and you primary and secondary professions are foreign, you receive no reward for your efforts, not even a skill tome or a hero skill point.
* Too many things too late compared with the other campaigns: parties of 8, elite skills, level +20 monsters...

For people that buy the Campaigns in order Propehcies->Factions->Nightfall it may be not much.
But I know a lot of people that Acquired Nightfall or Factions first. And most of them said more than once that they fell disappointed with Prophecies, and it was just some more plot a few quests, skills, the Grenth's footprint and that's mostly all of it.
You just have to visit some outpost in Maguuma to see how empty both of people and content it is.

There are many things that could be done, but there are no time or resources for most of them. So anything new, ANYTHING, should be welcomed always. Like skills for the foreign professions, quests that take place in abandoned areas, explorable versions of mission areas, animals that can be added to the HoM (like a Phoenix in the credits area and a quest animal received by making a long quest), green items for all bosses, bringing back the Catacombs as an elite area, reopening the closed arenas as challenge missions, adding end-chests to Tombs, turning the titan quests into repeatable elite quests, Hero skill trainers that exchange points given by making skill quest with foreign professions, moving the items given by quests to collectors and making those quests give reward trophies instead, etc...

The main idea is that The three campaigns should be equal in the things that all of them have, specially those that people like and work, but not necessarily in the ones that are 'unique' to one of them.
There is no reason to add competitive missions to any other campaign other than Factions. Treasures are something unique to Nightfall. The expansion may have many things from the Campaigns, but that's normal being a expansion, but Propehcies should not be the only one left out without real elite missions, challenge missions, PvE skills, reward tokens, etc...

For now, the only things retroactively added to Prophecies were Heroes (Olias and M.O.X.), lip sync, hard mode and its items and the credit areas. And if they ever have time to add more, if they do not derive resources from other things, I don't see how can anyone be opposed to the idea.

VinnyRidira · Feb 19, 2009, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terra Jim

/begin_sarcasm
While we are at it, lets allow characters to have a third profession to break things even more. W/E/N for example. Or allow 2 elites in the skill bar (outside of skill capping). After all, certain foes have these abilities, therefore why shouldn't we?
/end_sarcasm

Well as my suggestion originally suggested the skills be elite then this touch of sarcasm is kind of sad. As for 3rd professions, well I would suggest that the EoTN skills are a 3rd, 4th and 5th profession if you want them and not controlled by attributes rather than by rank. Sunspear and Canthan PvE skills although they are by profession are also controlled by rank and not attributes.

Having access to the secondary professions primary attribute losing the elite skill and one PvE slot is not so strange a request. The attribute may also only be available for a time say a (10..20) second enchantment with (1..12) rank and a recharge of 20 seconds. We already have attribute boosting skills and consets.

Coverticus · Feb 20, 2009, 10:36 AM // 10:36

The whole point of primary attributes is for that profession to have that uniqueness and power. Fast casting, energy storage, divine favor etc etc. Yes, we can use skills that utilise these attributes but, as secondaries, cannot use any points in this line. Which is an underlying part of the game design. And gives each profession that edge.

And as for making the game accessible to all, yes that would be nice. But that will never, ever happen. How many games are there that actually does this successfully? Very very few. In a MMO, this can't happen. Sure, the casual gamer who paid his £15 to get Nightfall could argue that he/she should be able to do DOA (for example). And they can - nothing stops them. But the foe levels/AI/level design is meant to be a challenge. If, say, 50% of people cannot do this area, it does not mean that the game developers have to sit down and make new skills so that this percentage can do it. And this is the whole problem with the game atm imo. I am not an elitist before you jump down my throat on this one, I enjoy the game and play it "casually". But if people cannot do a certain quest/mission/area, you have to ask why. And the main reason is the game is too accessible to the majority. Things are done for them with heroes/tomes/skill packs and the likes. It doesn't teach them how to play the game. Prophecies of old did do this and, tbh, did it very well. Factions and Nightfall does not do this.

Be honest - should we be able to take a level 10 from these areas, pop to GW:EN, have someone run the outposts and expect to play the game reasonably from that point? Of course not. And this is what PvE skills do tbh - they are an easy mode option (as well as consumables). Ok, we can QQ till the cows come home on this one but they are here and are not going away. Fine, I use them as does 99% of the game populous probably.

Yes - we have to have life given in this game as it is stagnating (well, it has stangnated already tbh) so new content, streamlining the campaigns together is an option yes. And I agree with MithranArkanere totally - those who got Prophecies last were left feeling empty and hollow. Which is a shame as its the best campaign by far due to its design, structure and looks. So what do we do? Well yes, content is the way to go but skills are not. We have enough of them already, lots are useless and many are clones of others. ANet did a review of them last year, adjusting many Elites in th process. But they didn't do enough. For me, they need to sit down with the skills and sort them out properly (yes I know properly and ANet in the same statement) as well as keep the majority happy until GW2, which is what so many are really waiting for.

Playable content for me is this best option here. As an example, something that would not really give the developers too much work is a new weapon range. To start with, say, only certain Prophecies bosses can drop. We have:

White
Blue
Purple
Gold
Green

Why not add a Red weapon range to this. Ok, I'm thinking off the cuff here but, give them unique animations when used, funky new skins, give them slightly increased damage ability, decent mods that are unique and not available to normal weps (such as +10 armour vs demons as we have atm, say +1 energy regen as a starter) - something to be proud of to own. Hell, lets go one step further and let them be held in outposts. And make these weapons difficult to get (say drop rate) so that people stay in Prophecies, trying to get these items. Link them to doing quests too (as a pre-requisite). Therefore Prophecies becomes played again.

Look what happened when Kepkhet and End reward areas were released in Prophecies? New life. Yes, I appreciate this is what you are trying to do in this thread, but in fairness, people will only pop in and get this skills unless you force them to play in Prophecies to get these skills. Just as in Factions, GWEN and Nightfall.

Hermos · Feb 20, 2009, 11:36 AM // 11:36

Anyway, can't his idea be tweaked a little, balance it? Like, 1 attribute when you hit 10mil or some other rubbish.

Lourens · Feb 20, 2009, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hermos

Anyway, can't his idea be tweaked a little, balance it? Like, 1 attribute when you hit 10mil or some other rubbish.

Make 4 new titles instead of the experience thing :

White Mantle Title Track > Kill Undead
Stone Summit Title Track > Kill Dwarfs in a new dungeon * You get 5k points for killing undead rurik
Shining Blade Title Track > Kill Jungle Monsters
Forgotten Title Track > Kill Hydras,Minotaurs etc

VinnyRidira · Feb 20, 2009, 02:10 PM // 14:10

I did suggest the skills have to be obtained via quests. I am curious about how many players characters have exceeded 10 million xp. My most played character after nearly 3 years is about 7 million xp. I have 17 maxed titles on that char so I am quite curious.

Coverticus · Feb 20, 2009, 03:11 PM // 15:11

An example, my monk has 48million XP, assassin 20mill - all from farming really. Other chars i have 15 mill +.

There are people with 100 million XP plus in this game, so 10 million XP is not that much.

MithranArkanere · Feb 20, 2009, 03:16 PM // 15:16

All Guild Wars playable character are Chosen Ones. They are all heroes.
They can't align to evil factions. So no White Mantle, Mursaat or Stone Summit.

Ascalonian humans are allies, but the Vanguard title exists already.
Deldrimor Dwarves are friends to humans too, but the Deldrimor title exist already.
Forgotten Ones are another allied faction, but the title for them would be 'Lightbringer', because as we can see in the Anguish, Forgotten Ones and the Order of Whispers work together, and in the case of Glint, Deldrimor is the title.

The Seer are a mystery, and no one really know what is in their heads. They may help the players, but they surely have their own agenda. So this one is out.

The only friendly allegiance left is The Shinning Blade.
But they are not about killing jungle monsters.
The enemies against the objectives of the Shinning Blade are many: The White Mantle and their Mursaat masters, the Stone Summit, the Titans and the Lich and his undead.

The Shinning Blade works for Kryta, Maguuma, some parts of the Souther shiverpeaks and the Ring of Fire islands.
For Ascalon it would have been fun to be able to get up to rank 2 of the Vanguard title in normal mode and rank 6..7 in Hard mode, specially since the Vanguard has much less areas in the North, provided you have Eye of the North too.
An for the Shiverpeaks it would be nice to be able to increase the Deldrimor title too up to rank 6..7, since most areas in the North are all underground. Owning Eye of the North too.
Same for the Dessert and Lighbringer, in this case only up to 4..6, and only if Nightfall is in the account too.
Needless to say, always requiring to go to the original areas to max the title.

Chieftain Heavyhand · Feb 20, 2009, 05:12 PM // 17:12

It should be tied to the Flame Seeker prophecies and have one skill per profession or just 2 skills for all professions like the Lightbringers.

Tying it to primary attribute of the profession which wouldn't cause much rewriting.

The way to gain access to them would be after the Dragon's Lair quest from the Vision of Glint in Dorks.

The skills should be tied to the professions primary attribute, that way no rewriting or new content would have to be created. Tying them to experience would be a way to go as well, but it seems to reward farming more than anything IMO.

I think they should lean more toward protection from fire or elemental damage and burning and some kind of conditions and burning for the attack skill. Flame seeker’s shield and Flame Seeker’s Signet.

Flame Seeker's Shield (skill) primary attribute.

5 energy 1/2sec cast and 15 sec recharge

For (3-15 seconds) your character is protected from elemental damage for (5-25%) and when on fire has (1-4 health regeneration)

Flame Seeker's Signet (signet) primary attribute

1/2sec cast 30 sec recharge

Target is dazed for (3-15seconds) and set on fire for (1-4seconds)

Maybe make Shield an enchantment so it can be striped, and reduce the daze duration of the Sig to keep them from being to over powering. Wouldn't be to much work for the team working on GW right now and would give prophecies the PVE skills you’re asking for.

VinnyRidira · Feb 20, 2009, 07:35 PM // 19:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terra Jim

An example, my monk has 48million XP, assassin 20mill - all from farming really. Other chars i have 15 mill +.

There are people with 100 million XP plus in this game, so 10 million XP is not that much.

I would suggest that that is fairly unusual and if the chars are so well played who would really care if they were maxed. Do you ever sleep? But the levels could be balanced according to the norm, I just suggested a set of value. Look Sunspear skills came out way after most of my chars were Castellan rank 8 so using xp would still be fair.

People who generally play parties of 8 are not so likely to have 10 million xp.

MithranArkanere · Feb 21, 2009, 03:17 PM // 15:17

XP would not be the best solution. Advancement in the plot it's better.

There is a LOT of people that skips TONS of Primary quests and Missions in Prophecies.
Make the PvE skills available only after certain Primary quests and Missions and you ensure people make them.

If they are PvE skills, they should be given for making PvE.

Skye Marin · Feb 21, 2009, 04:33 PM // 16:33

I'd imagine having it scale with Guardian would be best, because you'd be using the skills to help you gain the Protector title. While I have roughly 10 million XP on my main, my second highest doesn't have a quarter of that, and I've been on my account for more than 3,600 hours. Also note, well over 3 million of that was from a few months of raptor farming.

The idea of adding secondary attributes as a reward doesn't really gel, and it would not be much fun or worthwhile with it being so limited (tied to a skill, elite, and PvE). If you're going to make new skills, you might as well make them as a benefit to the class and it's role in PvE. For example:

Mesmer:
Ethereal Pain
5/1/20
Enchantment Spell. For 15..30 seconds, whenever you make a foe lose energy, that foe and up to 2 nearby foes take damage equal to your fast casting attribute for each point of energy lost.

Assassin:
5/1/15
Assassin's Victory
Spell. Shadow step to target foe's location. That foe is knocked down and crippled. This skill counts as a lead attack. If you had more life than your foe, that foe takes 60..80 damage.

Dervish:
Rending Shatter
5/1/10
Touch spell. For each enchantment on you, you remove one enchantment and deal 40..60 holy damage (max 150) to all nearby foes.

Ranger:
Death Trap
10/2/20
Trap skill. Affects nearby foes. Causes bleeding and deep wound (10..20 seconds) every second for 3 seconds. Causes 40..60 piercing damage every second for 3 seconds.