Thought about the PVE only skills, grind and the futur of the game for casual gamers

When I started GW more than 2 years ago, everyone would have easy access to the same skills and as good equipment equipment (armour/weapons) as everyone else.

Once at level 20 and far enough in the game you could get all skill.
Everyone has the same amount of skillpoints so those skills do the same amount of damage/healing etc.
Everyone could afford Droknars armour by the time they got there playing through the game.
Everyone could get max-weaponry from collectors/crafters adding some mods etc...

This was one of the main reasons I choose this game over some others.
I don't have the time to farm a lot.
I don't care too much about looks so Drok's armour will do.
I do like playing different characters and getting them all through the game is work enough.

When they added the Kurzick/Luxon factions I decided I didn't care too much about getting very high in those and it didn't impast me as a player. I did AB's for fun when I felt like it.

Then came nightfall and I had to get a certain ammount of SS points just to be able to progress in tha game. I was annoyed that they made me farm. Luckilly they removed that prereqesite for old characters pretty soon.

Then they added skills linked to Sunspear title track.
Some of those skills are really nice.
But I will never have time to max them out on all my characters. I could on one or maybe 2, but not all.
Yes I know the SS/LB worm farm thing. So I could max them if I wanted to. But honnestly I think thats boring, and doing something boring over and over again all the time is not the way I spend my meager free time. I play to enjoy myself, not to be bored.

So instead of having a not-fancy character, but with the same max stats as the others I now find myself with the annoying fact my characters are not as good as the others.

I hate this.

And it seems Eotn is going in the same direction.

I know I don't need those skills to be able to play through the game.

I still hate it.

And like I said, the game was not this way when it started. I've been here long enough to remember being annoyed at attribute refund points. I've had to farm XP to earn those and for skill points. But I considered refund points made sense in forcing people into role-playing a bit. I never had to buy all possible skills if I didn't want to, but I could if I wanted to.

Refund points were removed from the game and factions made us earn xp and skill points fast enough not to care about farming again. It made the game more accessible for the casual gamer and I considered that the game was evolving in the right direction.

Now I speak up because I feel the contrary is happening, and I fear for GW2.

1. You can progress in the game by simply doing most (not all) of the quests. Just click on the nearest Sunspear Scout when you're doing them, and you'll be a Level 8 Sunspear in no time.

2. The functionality between the Level 8 PvE Sunspear skills and Level 10 Sunspear skills are negligible.

So, in short, you don't have to farm one second if you don't want to. Just play the game.

Sunspear rank nets you nothing and is just there to keep really low level Nightfall natives from rushing farther along prematurely, although they could with assistance.

Only the lightbringer track has any real merit and it isn't even all that necessary.

Having the higher sunspear and lightbringer titles doesn't make much difference as already pointed out. Also having been a 2+ year player (with several long breaks in between) I can tell you that don't mind a bit of farming and in a sense it's one of the things keeping me going. If I could have achieved the highest sunspear and lightbringer ranks right off the bat or even as I reached the end of Nightfall then I would find the ranks themselves prety meaningless.

Besides, a casual player really wouldn't care about this nor would they likely stick around long after they completed the game anyway.

I'm in agreement with the OP. When it was just prophesies, the only thing seperating myself from any other player was my own skill... then along came factions and added salvage bonuses for chest/id title tracks. Admittedly the effect of the title was minimal, but it was the first step along the slope we're currently on. Nightfall introduced further grind based game effects which were orders of magnitude greater than what we saw with factions, and if this trend continues into gwen, casual players will really start to feel the discrimination, especially if pve areas are balanced for grinding players.

IMO Guildwars needs to go back to its principles and reward grind with cosmetics only.

This one certainly does and he's not going anywhere ... for now at least

Yes, skill over time spent is dead. It annoys me too.

OTOH, normal mode is so easy these days, and the new title-skills may be scaled such that they are still useful at casual-friendly levels, so it probably isn't the end of the world.

I can't imagine that most of the PVE-only skills in GW:EN are going to require the amount of time it takes to max out LB/SS.

1) Yes. that makes SS rank bearable.

2) Sorry, but fuctionality is still improved

Point of OP is that his *enjoyment* of game is hurt by this kind of stuff. Looking ther other way and pretending that is not there solves nothing. It is easy suggestion to make, but it is flawed because if it worked for OP he wouldnt have made such post to begin with.

And definitelly wont make him happier.

(OP: I hear ya!)

Reading about GW:EN and GW2 has already made me abandon all but one of my chars. That means 4 accounts and 26 of chars in hibernation.

Especially GW2 seems to be geared to playing just one and i am afraid the HOM will only let you cross over the accomplishements of just 1 char. A few days and i hope to see how HOM will work but i guess it will be a long time before we know what will be the linked unlock in GW2.

I'll give up 1-2 seconds of functionality in order to avoid hours of farming any day of the week (and twice on Sundays).

If you look at it this way, the SS skills in no material way impact his gameplay as a casual gamer. That shouldn't impact his "enjoyment" of the game at all, just like not having FoW armor doesn't impact his enjoyment of the game.

I have max SS, LB and r7 kurzick and I rarely use my PvE skills in normal PvE (only use them for HM most the time). These skills are not requirement for normal PvE like all casual players do unless they decide to become hardcore PvErs who like to farm, get titles, HM, etc.

So let me get this straight.

The OP knows he does not need the titles or the PvE only skills to play.

That SS level 8 can be reached in normal mode through casual game play.

Thinks that EoTN might go the same direction even though no one has any idea how the title tracks are going to be implemented.

Hates it because he doesn't have time to get maxed titles on all his characters.

Me thinks this is an e-peen issue.

Just play the game have fun and move on....no one is going to kick you from a group because you don't have a maxed title or a PvE only skill, and if some one does trust me you don't want to be part of that group.

Also wait and see what they do with EoTN before complaining about the game. For all we know it will be just like getting SS level 8, which as i stated can be reached through normal game play.

But before them, casuall player enjoyed being on part with hardoce as far as stats were concerned.

PvE skills changed that and Casuals can no longer enjoy leveled playing field.

There is no racionalization that gets around it. And you cant exaclty tell people "you shouldt feel this way", because it does not work.

/That FoW armour thing is cute, but totally irrelevant argument, because it gives no advantage to be concerned about./

While you don't *need* to farm for the SS/LB titles, the fact that you can still be rewarded for the time spent might be what's itching the OP>

Yes they do and that is what the OP is getting at.

What if, the dungeons in GWEN require you to have high level PVE skills like the DOA or the torment regions do the SS skills?

You would not get into much groups if you did not have them.

Its true that you can acrue high levels of SS points simply by playing thru the game and getting the hunts in each area you enter.

I also feel that this arguement is like saying "Why should i have to finish sanctum cay to get to the desert? I want to play the game my way" or "I dont want to complete the missions to advance through factions! I shouldnt have to grind my way through them to reach Cavalon!". Sunspear points are part of the game, gaining them is part of playing it.

It's more like PUG in the desert missions asking you to show your "Sanctum cay completion badge" and kick you if you do not have it.

GW, the way it was, allowed elitism among players but did not give them any means to enforce it.

Titles and skills linked to titles will do just that

Again speculation....wait and see how the title tracks actually progress before saying that its going to be a grind and this is going to happen because you are required to do that. Stop jumping to conclusions and wait to see what actually needs to be done.

and the OP is saying that they thinks other people have better characters because they have maxed title and he does not. I don't have any of the titles maxed out my highest is SS 8 and I have not trouble finding groups.

Also If some one is anal enough to require you to have a certain PvE skill only and a Certain title maxed out, you really don't want to be in their group anyway.

No, it is not like that, you are just setting up strawman with this.

As far as "casual play"

If you are a casual player, fine. I don't farm for greens or gold. I tend to stick to the missions. SS is part of the game progression. LB? Its skills were more a hindrance to me, taking up a useful spot on my skill bar. I did better in Sebelkeh without it. Other than Critical Agility and There's Nothing to Fear, I can't really find any of the faction/Sunspear skills worth taking over others.

This is an instanced game, not a true MMO. It's like saying you want to get to the end of FF XII without doing the same amount of work as others playing the game. Like others said before, you can get all the LB/SS points you need just by clicking on the scout/whispers reps at each res shrine wherever you go. That isn't grind. It's playing the game. Someone else makes the game...you play by their rules.

Now excuse me while I go grind SS HM in Sulfurous Wastes.

Casual people have never been on par with hardcore players. Not even from the start. I'm perfectly happy with a +41 hp major vigor because I found it. I'll be damned if I have to blow 12 plat on 9 extra hit points even if my bank account has plenty of cash now.

Stepping into random arena in my first week of playing I knew I was outclassed by people who spent the time to chase down the elites. My healing breeze on my Wa/Mo was easily outclassed by someone with elite healing spell XXXX because they took the Time to track down the boss in the middle of nowhere to take it off his proverbial cold dead hands.

Even with the stats issue, a casual player may never spend the Time to do the two 15 point attribute quests or even know about them which also puts him/her at a disadvantage, and this was a feature since day one. So how is this player parity when the game was first released?

The idea that casual players ever had parity with hardcore players is a complete illusion. You can minimize the gap with a little work, and even then there is never a huge disparity between players due to the nature of the game, but the gap will always be there.