Guild Wars 2

Nurvus.2891:

@Mentalhead
Another Weapon Skill slot would be nice, but I’d rather have yet another idea I presented – more weapon skills per weapon/profession, and the ability to customize weapon slots like we do utility/elite slots.

I’ve presented this idea in my Expansion Concepts thread (check my signature).

As for me, I would like to see more weapon skills and more slot skills, but the main problem is balance. I would like if we could unlock them with skillpoints or simply by using a weapon, so that high level players wouldn’t have advantage over low level players in WvW.

Well, if you check my idea in Expansion Concepts, you’ll know what I meant.

But I’ll give a quick glimpse here:
I suggested that weapons have Subtypes – sword would have sword, katana and scimitar; greatsword would have greatsword, nodachi and falchion.
Subtypes would be considered the same Weapon – they are still Swords and Greatswords.
What distinguishes them is that they start off with a unique set of skills.
However, once you unlock all skills that weapon starts with (in that hand), you can use all the skills you unlocked for that type with that weapon.

So, if you unlocked all 5 skills of Greatsword, 3 of Nodachi and 5 of Falchion, you can pick skills from the 13 you unlocked if you have a Greatsword or Falchion equipped.
But if you have Nodachi equipped, you must first unlock its remaining 2 skills before you can use the other 10 skills with it.

This would be your example of ""simply by using a weapon".

Then I also suggested spreading weapon masters throughout the world, wich would present challenges you must complete with a specific weapon type (without swapping).
Each weapon master would have 1 skill for each class (and perhaps 1 skill per element for Elementalists).

Well great idea, but this would be A LOT of work not to mention balancing.

Anet is so afraid of balancing too many skills like they did in GW1.
But variety will balance itself also, as you will get more and more counters to a special system. Of course in the end, this might get skills on all classes to look more and more the same, which would realy be a problem.
Still I prefer to have the system more like GW1 with a lot of variance. Especially to choose different kind of weapon skills on the same weapon. Just make it so, that you can just change your number 2 to another number 2 and not to one of 10 other skills.

Why not just add more skills to the game?

Mist Y.5214:

Why not just add more skills to the game?

Because one thing is balancing skill A with variants 1, 2 and 3.
You know you can only use one of them, as they are mutually exclusive, because they are the same skill.

Another thing is balancing 3 skills and the interactions between them.
You can use 1, 2 or all 3 simultaneously, as they aren’t mutually exclusive, because they are not the same skill.

sternenstaub.8763:

Anet is so afraid of balancing too many skills like they did in GW1.
But variety will balance itself also, as you will get more and more counters to a special system. Of course in the end, this might get skills on all classes to look more and more the same, which would realy be a problem.
Still I prefer to have the system more like GW1 with a lot of variance. Especially to choose different kind of weapon skills on the same weapon. Just make it so, that you can just change your number 2 to another number 2 and not to one of 10 other skills.

To be honest, at the moment that should be the least of their concerns.

Currently, the trait system doesn’t offer true customizability.
You either go super tanky and ignore offensive traits, in wich case you can use whatever weapon you want; or you are pigeonholed into a couple trait setups.

That is highly destructive to the game’s longevity, in the long run.

By having skill variants, at least you can open up alot more builds.

I also made a suggestion on how I think stats should change to make the game more fun.
Just check the threads in my Signature!

SSalp.6423:

Well great idea, but this would be A LOT of work not to mention balancing.

Any change worth working on will be alot of work.
If ANet focuses on bandaid changes the game will slowly crumble.
They must remain willing to make deep changes, as the game is still unstable.
It needs the foundations of its gameplay to be improved.

Mentalhead.5721:

As for me, I would like to see more weapon skills and more slot skills, but the main problem is balance. I would like if we could unlock them with skillpoints or simply by using a weapon, so that high level players wouldn’t have advantage over low level players in WvW.

The main problem isn’t balance.
The main problem is lack of depth in combat, and players ultimately getting bored with the lack of customizability.
You have so many skills and traits, and yet so few ways to combine them.

great Idea! As I was playing D3 as well, I kept thinking if I’d ever see this kind of thing in GW2. I’m not sure if Anet would go for creating skill variants for every skill in the game, although if they did, MAN would that be awesome I’d be all for it. Even if not, I’d still be ok with them maybe adding another weapon modification in addition to sigils that acted as a D3 rune or skill variant effect. This would affect all the skills related to that weapon in a potentially similar way, or a pre-set combination, which gives you a little less freedom but is still a good bit of options to work with, since you could mix main/offhand variants. This is definitely the kind of changes I’d like to see as well rather than gear, good post

This would be particularly interesting as it would help ANet add the concept of skill/monster hunter or bestiary into the game, wich would add a whole new layer of endgame progression and activities to the game, at a very low resource cost.

Nurvus.2891:

• Each Variant becomes available for unlock only after defeating certain monsters scattered throughout the game World

I like this. Brings back having to kill enemies and cap their skills from the original GW.

That’s one of the points.
It’s more than just “give us more content”.
It’s – above all – enriching the whole gaming experience, and giving the world of GW2 a truer feeling of world.

Nurvus.2891:

stuffs

man that will be a great improvement of the game but… do you know how many time is required to change an entire game in a such way? Remember that ArenaNet is doing it for free… remember that they want to keep our interest up in the game not only with the game itself (which is spectacular) but also giving us new events every 2 weeks… remember that there are also a lot of problems (bugs) with the actual situation of the game… remember that they want to literally change things in the second part of 2013; so i don’t think they can never do something like what you are asking for… let’s see how it ends, i’m pretty sure they will never disappoint

Nurvus.2891:

stuffs

man that will be a great improvement of the game but… do you know how many time is required to change an entire game in a such way? Remember that ArenaNet is doing it for free… remember that they want to keep our interest up in the game not only with the game itself (which is spectacular) but also giving us new events every 2 weeks… remember that there are also a lot of problems (bugs) with the actual situation of the game… remember that they want to literally change things in the second part of 2013; so i don’t think they can never do something like what you are asking for… let’s see how it ends, i’m pretty sure they will never disappoint

No, ANet isn’t doing it for free – they got paid, and still get paid.
Furthermore, the game would benefit from this.
And it takes ALOT less effort than designing new content.

A very interesting concept. The only issue I could see is less direct balance, and more linked to ANet’s obsession with making GW2 the next big “Esport.” As such, any skill addition or variation would -most likely- be measured by how easy it is for a random PvPer to recognize. This, unfortunately would then limit skills to being either:

1. Flashy as hell
2. Slow
3. Colour-coordinated per class.

With that in mind, if we did luck out and gain skill variants, it’d probably only be 1-2 per weapon, so they could keep ’em easy-to-read. OTOH, if we could simply convince the Devs entire to relax a bit on that desire of theirs, it could make the whole game a good deal more interesting, perhaps. (Hell, most of the Gem buys are logically from PvE/WvW players as is. At least if overall population = cash shopping)

GW2 is less of an esport than GW1 ever was.

If ANet focuses on Balance in detriment of Enjoyment, they’ll get plenty of undesired results.

Skill variants would be small improvements, mostly changing the way you use the skill, to accomodate different builds.
I gave examples already.

There should be 3-5 variants per Weapon.

The point of Variants is introducing the “Skill Hunt” from GW1, without introducing more skills.
It merely gives you alternative versions of existing skills.

This is:
Easier to balance than adding more skills.
Easier to implement (from a resource/budget point of view) than adding more skills.
Easier to implement than adding new areas/bosses/content.
Adding alot more to the game than any of the above.

That being said, we should also get more Weapon skills – I suggested that in my Expansion Concepts thread (signature link).