Curse

Rhunex · Jun 11, 2005, 05:44 AM // 05:44

This is sort of a question, sort of a suggestion so I really didn't know where to put it, sorry if it's in the wrong place.

Anyways. My main point here is when you are able to change your secondary profession in the Crystal Desert. What happens for me, is I get to do the quests in Ascalon, and 1 or 2 in shiverpeaks, and from then on, no quests for my new secondary profession. So, my only option is to buy skills. Call me crazy, but getting a secondary profession for a few skills to experiment with, or needing 100s of skill points for all the cool skills to have fun with, just sounds insane to me.

If you really want to work out some of the grind...why not enable the quests to gain skills when you switch your secondary?

I see it two ways right now.

1. PvP who want to unlock skills rush to level 20, ascend, change profession, and work on all the new quests they have, to unlock as many skills as they want to for PvP. This way, they get the skills they want, without having to make 3 different characters and getting them far into the game(also, for the casual PvP player, not the hour on end grinders).

2. People who honestly want to work to get their skills for their secondary, still can, if they want to. They still have the option to go through the game as all the professions, get the skills the hard way, and get some self satisfaction out of it.

So, pretty much a lot of people are happy....though I have only 1 mind, so I'm kind of asking if this would be accepted in our community, or would it be too easy to unlock everything then?

glasszon · Jun 11, 2005, 05:18 PM // 17:18

I think it's too easy, because then you will see someone unlocked all skills in 1 character and that will simply make the choice for secondary class pointless.

Silmor · Jun 11, 2005, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Even if you could do all the quests again, there'd still be a large number of skills you need to buy/capture for your new secondary profession. This alone makes trying to unlock all skills with one character an unfeasible thing right now, and gaining levels over and over again in order to be able to afford those new skills is what ArenaNet claims they're trying to prevent.

I'm wondering about the skill point system in the first place. I say remove the skill point system altogether, 'levelling' beyond 20 is not a challenge, just grind - they currently enforce 'more hours spent' -> 'more skills' -> 'more power', and this is especially true for those who changed their secondary profession around.

glasszon, unlocking all skills on one character would be a perfect way to go about the game - the choice for secondary character -shouldn't- be critical anyway, and you can create whatever you want using PvP premades anyway once you have things unlocked. It's not 'too easy', since people have to face the exact same challenges as before, it's just 'less annoying', because they wouldn't need to repeat facing those challenges over and over again before they can start enjoying what they were working for.

glasszon · Jun 12, 2005, 03:37 AM // 03:37

I do understand there is reasons why it would be a good idea, but if it is too easy to unlock all skill in 1 character and hence allow them to change secondary whenever they want at no cost (unlocked all skills for the 5 secondary), you might as well allow people to create a role playing character at level 20 instead of just PvP. PvP is one thing, but PvM is another, don't forget by creating a PvP you cannot play PvM with that character (well, except the monster round in tomb right at the beginning).

I don't agree with you on the skill point system, you believe it leads to more hours spent = more power. But remember, a game that requires absolutely no grinding at all would not attract people for long, so some grinding is required for a game of this kind. Guild Wars is by far already got the least grinding required for a game like this and you are still complaining it's too much?

The only way you could do without skill point system is to NOT allow people to change secondary at all. Secondary profession are there to add more depth to the game, if you allow people to use all secondary profession with all skills on one character without much work, you have just removed secondary profession as a reason for people to remake characters.

Do you know what made people leave diablo 2? Why the so called "hacked" items in diablo 2 actually help people to stay playing diablo 2 longer than otherwise? The simple reason is because people finish everything and obtained all possible best item in the game that they have no goals to aim at, no reason to continue playing. The reason I used diablo 2 as an example is because it is in a lot of ways similar to guild wars. eg. only 8 people could be in a map at 1 time. If you remove all grinds from guild wars, you will find a lot of people leave this game after a short while as they got everything they need and don't like the PvP element in the game.

Rhunex · Jun 12, 2005, 05:38 AM // 05:38

I just suggested this so that the people who want their PvP skills, without playing for 100s of hours, would be able to. Because it's been said somewhere that it takes about 30 hours to get through the story, and just the story. So doing all the quests for each profession means 180+ hours, assuming the person wants ALL of the skills and makes all professions into primaries. Of course, the people who really want all the skills, will get them eventually, but what about the casual player that gets their first character to level 20, crystal desert, in say...3 or 4 weeks due to lack of game time? That's just one character, so they really don't get the full gaming experience they should, since they payed $50(USD) to play, they should get all the features, and not 1/6 of them. Plus, it's not like someones going to change their profession 4 times in one day, and unlock all the skills. You still have certain skills that are primary only, plus elite skills.

I was just thinking it would be nice to enable people who want skills, to get them easily, and the people who still want to work for them the hard way, can. It's not like you're obligated to focus on one character, and change the profession enough times to get all the skills in the game. Plus, it allows people to sort of beta test their future PvP build, since they have to go through the game again(lacking the storyline missions) to get all the skills they want, and PvPers would probably be the main group to use this sort of feature.

Otherwise, it seems pointless to change your secondary so you have to work hard, and grind out levels to buy all the skills you want, when it is just as easy to make a new character, if you have the time. Either way, it's not for the casual player who spends a few hours online every week, because they're faced with hours of monotonous grind(which no one wants to do in their few spare hours) or they have to keep recreated characters, with new profession combos and play the same missions over and over.

Bloody Knight · Jun 12, 2005, 06:23 AM // 06:23

it's already easy you can unlock all the eliete skills for a class you never made and RPG character out off, and you can buy skills from places like Drokonars which is kinda hard to get to.

Rhunex · Jun 12, 2005, 07:15 AM // 07:15

How do you unlock elite skills for professions you haven't played? I thought you could only cap elite skills for your primary profession(which is why they made primary unchangeable...)?

Aaaaagh · Jun 12, 2005, 07:56 AM // 07:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhunex

How do you unlock elite skills for professions you haven't played? I thought you could only cap elite skills for your primary profession(which is why they made primary unchangeable...)?

You can capture any elite skill with any character.

Rhunex · Jun 12, 2005, 08:11 AM // 08:11

Ooooh...maybe I was thinking of runes, where you can only use them on your primary...

glasszon · Jun 12, 2005, 08:38 AM // 08:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhunex

I just suggested this so that the people who want their PvP skills, without playing for 100s of hours, would be able to. Because it's been said somewhere that it takes about 30 hours to get through the story, and just the story. So doing all the quests for each profession means 180+ hours, assuming the person wants ALL of the skills and makes all professions into primaries. Of course, the people who really want all the skills, will get them eventually, but what about the casual player that gets their first character to level 20, crystal desert, in say...3 or 4 weeks due to lack of game time? That's just one character, so they really don't get the full gaming experience they should, since they payed $50(USD) to play, they should get all the features, and not 1/6 of them. Plus, it's not like someones going to change their profession 4 times in one day, and unlock all the skills. You still have certain skills that are primary only, plus elite skills.

I was just thinking it would be nice to enable people who want skills, to get them easily, and the people who still want to work for them the hard way, can. It's not like you're obligated to focus on one character, and change the profession enough times to get all the skills in the game. Plus, it allows people to sort of beta test their future PvP build, since they have to go through the game again(lacking the storyline missions) to get all the skills they want, and PvPers would probably be the main group to use this sort of feature.

Otherwise, it seems pointless to change your secondary so you have to work hard, and grind out levels to buy all the skills you want, when it is just as easy to make a new character, if you have the time. Either way, it's not for the casual player who spends a few hours online every week, because they're faced with hours of monotonous grind(which no one wants to do in their few spare hours) or they have to keep recreated characters, with new profession combos and play the same missions over and over.

But you forgot quite a few things, the first thing is. Have you ever done Old Ascalon mission in level 20? You could do it 10X faster than at the level it is intended for, so by allowing people to do this, you basicly give them a quick way to unlock all skills without having to work much at all. I don't think anyone should expect a game like this to be truly skill based and not time spent. (I know that's what ArenaNet says, but there is only so far you can go in cutting down grinding time without driving away all the people who just want PvM, remember the only reward in PvM is experience and items, if they can get maximum experience required and best item available in a hurry, then what's the point on continuing PvM without waiting for the expansion?) If you want a game that requires absolutely NO grinding at all, obviously you are looking at the wrong type of game and you should continue playing counter-strike rather than a RPG game.

Chev of Hardass · Jun 12, 2005, 09:33 AM // 09:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aaaaagh

You can capture any elite skill with any character.

Well ther is some bad information if I ever heard it.

The skills have to be of your profession. The way you post reads, you can just cap all the skills whenever you want.

And to the origional poster, great idea, but put the quests somewhere hard. I have a N/Mo with 0 skill points that used to be a N/Ele. Just to buy the standard Mo skills I spent all the skill points I had saved. I am missing many Ele and Mo skills. It is not fun to switch professions.

Silmor · Jun 12, 2005, 01:05 PM // 13:05

That's the main issue - lack of skill points. For every elite you want to capture and for the many skills you can only buy from skill trainers you'll first need to 'level', which gets harder and harder for each point you obtain. This is an issue for people unlocking skills for their primary and original secondary already, for someone switching secondary professions it's even worse. Having to 'grind' this way seems to be what ArenaNet is trying to prevent, so it would be logical for them to introduce some way to get around this limitation, and the most simple solution would be to just drop the skill point system (and possibly increase the gold cost for buying skills, although their cost already becomes higher and higher for each skill you buy - would be a decent way to bleed money from the economy).

glasszon · Jun 12, 2005, 03:03 PM // 15:03

But I guess ArenaNet have this skill points system to stop 2 things: 1. people who already have a character finished the entire game with a lot of gold could just buy up all the skills with a new character without any opportunity cost (Not very hard to get from Ascalon to Thunderhead Keep in 1-2 day if you play with a good team) . 2. It would basicly took the whole idea about secondary profession away, the skill point system require you to make a decision on whether you want 1 secondary with a lot of skills, or multiple secondary with few skills each. (Ok, you can get around the second problem by grinding as you said, but except for people who play 24/7, not many people would go and get 75 skill points for another complete set of a second secondary profession skill)

Silmor · Jun 12, 2005, 03:30 PM // 15:30

Then why are the secondary profession switching quests there in the first place, if they don't want you to have a decent chance at actually being able to play that secondary profession?

Challenge in this game is NOT in the amount of hours you have to spend. You can change around both primary and secondary profession by simply deleting your character, restarting it with the new classes and spending a bunch of hours levelling it up/gathering skills, same as other RPGs. I believe the secondary switching quests are there to give people an opportunity to change around their secondary (if they're not satisfied with their original choice) without having to re-roll their character from scratch, but because of the skill point system and broken quests as indicated in the OP, this fails miserably - re-rolling the character is currently actually a faster method of obtaining the skills you want than switching secondary profession through a quest.

People buying up all the skills for a new secondary class would be perfect. Excess money gets removed from the economy, something Guild Wars currently really needs if gold is to mean anything in three months from now. People who already finished all the missions and want to start playing PvP instead of having to redo PvE with a different classed character can simply spend all the gold they have no other purpose for on skills. I don't understand why you want them to repeat things they already proved capable of - like you said, it requires a character who already finished the entire game.

Da Cebuano · Jun 12, 2005, 04:02 PM // 16:02

I guess its a way to unlock skills for other classes w/o having to start a new game. Although IMHO, its just ANET's way for people to grind some more for xp, they just promote soloing for this game yet deals absolute wrath on soloers.

Awol Duteq · Jun 12, 2005, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da Cebuano

I guess its a way to unlock skills for other classes w/o having to start a new game. Although IMHO, its just ANET's way for people to grind some more for xp, they just promote soloing for this game yet deals absolute wrath on soloers.

Alot of people have done the entire game with hench only....so ANet was exactly correct. Solo (Meaning youre the only 'real' player) is very doable.

Back on topic: Maybe a solution to this would be to fix the quest thing, reopen those old skill quests and allow them to be redoable. Maybe even a percentage of your SP's refunded. If you change your sub prof more than once, that percentage gets much lower. This makes it easier to change your sub, but still very, very hard to just unlock everything with one character.

Silmor · Jun 12, 2005, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Why would you want to make unlocking everything using one character very very hard? Someone focusing on unlocking everything will clearly play through the entire game at least once, so why exactly should he or she be forced to do that all over again to cover the other classes? I just can't understand that train of thought.

Awol Duteq · Jun 12, 2005, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silmor

Why would you want to make unlocking everything using one character very very hard? Someone focusing on unlocking everything will clearly play through the entire game at least once, so why exactly should he or she be forced to do that all over again to cover the other classes? I just can't understand that train of thought.

One character means one character, one sub, and a chance to change if you dislike your sub without starting a new character (which is very generous of ANet to begin with), not 6 in one. It's as intended. If it was inteded the other way they would only give you two slots, one for a pve unlocking character and one for instant pvp. I do agree as it is, it's very harsh to change your sub, but if Anet didn't mind you unlocking all skills with one character, it would be a full SP refund and quest reopener right out of the box.

Anyways, its so much faster just to run another character through, even if they did give all quests back and an SP refund.

CKaz · Jun 12, 2005, 04:22 PM // 16:22

I can't agree more with the premiss of the thread.

WITHOUT allowing players to do the secondary quests with a new secondary [and how does this make sense??] you MAKE people do insane amounts of grind for skill points without trying the different content - 2 exact things GW is supposed to be against right?

Meanwhile with only 4 slots (wth?!) you're forced to use at least 3 (provided you make combos stretching every profession there) rpg ones to do the unlocks. Yay. 1 for pvp after you play 3 pve chars to death in every manageable fashion to play the full pvp game. By that time the expansion will be around and you'll be behind the 8ball again..

Yeah at first I was excited and thought GOOD JOB GW! when I heard you could change the secondary class later - maybe my warrior/ranger wasn't the best combination [even though I went for the whole warrior good with a bow too thing so you'd hope that'd work out] and I could do something about it w/o scrapping him.

BUT now I'd learn I'd have to grind for skill points like a SOB if I do so.

Thanks but no thanks :b

InvaderGIR · Jun 12, 2005, 05:37 PM // 17:37

I, for one, say that after ascending (not reaching level 20), skill points shouldn't be needed to purchase new skills.

And for all those Mesmer players out there, you'd probably understand me the most. The secondary class change into a Mesmer is almost absolutely useless because lots of Mesmer skills are very situational. By the time I realized I could switch my sub and into Mesmer, I had only three skill points left. I could do absolutely nothing except maybe just conjure phantasm (which isn't the whole premise of being a Mesmer). My now Elementalist/Mesmer was as good as being an Elementalist straight. Could I get any more skills without battling on hours end to get ONE skill point? Nope. All I had was three skill points at the time and I definitely believe that's not enough to put the Elementalist/Mesmer build to its full potential.

In a sense, to me, there's really no point in changing your secondary profession. I went through the game as an Elementalist/Monk, used skills from both classes, ascended, changed it to Elementalist/Mesmer to try it out, and it just didn't work. No, I'm not saying that Elementalist/Mesmers suck (hell, quite the opposite), but I just couldn't do a damn thing because my lack of skill points didn't let me do much period except to switch back to being an Elementalist/Monk. It sucked. It sucked hard. And it just seemed pointless to switch your secondary class.

Anyways, that's my two cents on the thing.