Guild Wars 2

kKagari.6804:

Creativity comes from constraint, having all your skills in over 50 hotkeys simply limits your playstyle because there will be no need for change

that’s absurd…having 20 situational choices is always better than 2 button mashers and 8 cool downs/situationals….

Try another class not thief, imo.

Easy mode class, is easy mode.

If you’ve played WoW for any length of time you’ll know that those full hotbars of abilities are very deceiving in terms of flexibility. Each class is designed with a very specific rotation/priority system in mind that uses only a few skills. Everything else is just situational.

People seem to forget why Anet have implemented the combat system that they have. Having skills that correspond to weapons adds new depth to PVP battles. It allows experienced players who have played different professions to know that if they see a thief with dual daggers, then they can prepare for heartseeker spam (keep some dodge/stun left for his initiative burst). The combat system has incredible depth, and yes you can simply button smash and be done with it, but a player who knows his combo fields, who knows what his team needs and can read his enemy, he will be tremendously more successful compared to the button smasher.

Having fewer skills also means that positioning and movement becomes a lot more valuable. For example, the elementalist has a firegrab that does extra damage to a burning enemy and is on a 45 second cooldown. If the enemy can avoid that skill, then he has gained a distinct advantage over the elementalist, since eles don’t have that many bursty skills. However if the professions had more skills, then avoiding them becomes meaningless as they have something else that can fulfill that ability’s function anyway. This adds intensity and purpose to the combat and makes sure that if you’re not paying attention, then you’re at a disadvantage.

If you want a lot of skills go play an Ele. Some say Engineers. Have the most but they really don’t, technically. You have 5 per element, 20 total, then your utility, heal, elite. If you use your conjured weapons in the elite you have another 20 weapon skills. Frost Bow, Lightning Hammer, Lava Axe, Fiery Greatsword. Sure, they aren’t great but you wantloads of abilities, mostly utility, then go do that. You’ll have 40 damaging skills, and a heal. Bam, problem solved.

while it may sound fun, it would bring a WHOLE lot of balance issues, similar to what we got now that some spells can be chained together in a way that they all land at the same time
spells have their own cooldowns, if i could equip another set of support skills while in combat , i could , theoretically , chain support skills like that too, and we all know some support skills are very strong, imagine them combined with say…3 mantra abilties on a mesmer on one bar, port, poison well , whatever on the other one, the mester could precharge all his mantras , switch to the main weapon, use his well , port whatever, and instantly switch and smack you with daze, dmg, cripple charged mantras all in less than 2 seconds …..its jsut a random example but you get the idea, it would require a lot of balancing that i dont think they will ever wanna do , its fine as it is

You’re probably right, but it already feels like many utility skills are tied to or work better with certain weapons. Just seems like it might be a way to enhance the number of available skills… as is, it does seem just a touch boring.

I prefer what GW2 has. I would rather have 5 skills that i use all the time, as opposed to 30-40 skills that I barely use…..if at all

@OP
I agree that there needs to be more skills and I was hoping it would be like gw1 where you have the options of picking your skill set from 100s of other skills. But I have to point out that you are very rude. “i want all skills available and visible on Hotbars… if you dont know what i mean your probaly a mmo n00b. Goodbye then ! your wrong on this topic !”

I thought there weren’t enough skills either… and then I hit level 30, did my first dungeon, and realised I’d been playing the game wrong.

The five skill choice isn’t because the game’s simple, it’s because it’s complex. You’re expected to use ALL of your skills, and ALL of your weapons, and know the ins and outs of each of them, and know exactly what you’re capable of at all times. And then you choose just five of them to bring with you at any one time.

See Vanguard, Everquest, WoW, AoC, Warhammer, Rift etc etc etc thats how it has to be…. 20-50 Hotkeys filled with nice skills that give me the possibility to play my characters in 99999 different ways. In GW2 theres only 1 way to play a class… yea maybe a 2nd after weapon change.

I’m pretty sure you answered your own question here. “Vanguard, Everquest, WoW, AoC, Warhammer, Rift etc etc etc” Those games are out there, you can play them, you probably should. GW2 works the way it is.

I will never play another MMO with 40 different skills on my hotbar.

I don’t see why adding skills would be detrimental.

As long as they were unique skills and not the same flavor of an existing skill.

Seems to me it would make PvP even better.

Its interesting how some people see someone ask for a feature and they jump all over them like how dare they suggest the game is not perfect.

lol

kids today, no manners

I dont think adding skills would be detrimental, I want the same number of skills though..I see no reason fro 20 skills bloating the menu..make us use resources and swap them out.

What you need to remember is that Guild Wars 2 is not really an MMORPG. It is more an MMOFPS. There are no real “roles” in Guild Wars 2 other than the standard “attack/shoot the MoB, dodge when you can, heal when you can, die, res and re-zerg the MoB” role. The game has far more in common with console shooters and FPS games than it does an RPG.

I think a lot of the woes that people face when playing this game is that they EXPECT an MMORPG, because that is what it is advertised as. But the truth is it really is not. It is an MMOFPS. I think the best comparison I have read is to think of it as “Skyrim with multiple people”.

Thanks.

Can only say I love the simple skill set up. Im tired over saturated cumbersome UIs. I tried playing SWTOR recently and got annoyed from all the skills. it was meaningless.

OP; change your traits. change your sigils. equip other weapons. use your f-number skills. find the right sigils and runes.

i equipped a special rune that makes my shouts heal other players, so now i can play a dps warrior with party support heals. all because of a sigil, and a single trait that allows shouts to heal.

before that i played a banner build. when im not out doing dps, i use axe/axe and longbow, for farming with a different set of gear, and signit skills for passive survival. my game experience changes significantly. do not underrestimate the power of the traits, sigils, runes, upgrades and other weapons.

think about for a second about that in most mmos you spend the same 5-10 skills the majority of the time. gw2 is AMAZING for its skill system and even though its not perfect its awesomely balanced.

Michaeas Magister.1589:

What you need to remember is that Guild Wars 2 is not really an MMORPG. It is more an MMOFPS. There are no real “roles” in Guild Wars 2 other than the standard “attack/shoot the MoB, dodge when you can, heal when you can, die, res and re-zerg the MoB” role. The game has far more in common with console shooters and FPS games than it does an RPG.

I think a lot of the woes that people face when playing this game is that they EXPECT an MMORPG, because that is what it is advertised as. But the truth is it really is not. It is an MMOFPS. I think the best comparison I have read is to think of it as “Skyrim with multiple people”.

Thanks.

thats not true. Planetside is a MMOFPS.

GW2 has no aiming. And saying there is no roles is not true at all. People assume roles dynamically and swap them out. people equip and accomodate when needed.

there are dps roles for people who are build squishy with little hp. there are support for people with party heals and party buffs. there are crowd control, there are aoe, there are stuns.

the difference is just that people dont get shoehorned into roles. and people have more responsibility and players are required to manage more things individually. nobody has their own heal bots like a raid has in WoW.

its a MMORPG through and through. it just does things differently. its governed by stats, gear, levelling.

I will say the same thing i say everytime i see one of these threads (and there are a lot of them).

Learn to play.

If you’re only using the same 5 skills, perhaps you need to think about changing your slot skills/second weapon to something you’re going to use more. When I play the only time I use the 1 skill is when everything else on both weapons are on cooldown >.>

Kind of a silly thing to say. With any of those other games where you have 40+ skills at once, you really only use a few, your “rotation” basically. It just seems like more. You’re given the vital skills that really define your character, nothing more. It’s great.

@ Effect:

And with those other games you had a choice. Choice of which skills you are going to use and when.
If you only used your “rotation” this means you used what others thought was best or you intentionally limited yourself. But you had an option to do it differently. You just didn’t use it.
Now this option or choice is almost non-existent. You are “told” how to play. And it appears we are all supposed to do it the same way. Best builds are already out there, best counter attacks are already out there. So this system simplifies combat on one hand and makes it more demanding on other. But not enough, imo.
I would like to choose these “vital” skills for myself. I would like to be defined by my playstyle and all other things I do ingame personally. Not by some predefined set of skills.

In my opinion having not more than 10 Skills is fine however i would really appreciate it if every weapon had more than one skill set to choose from because i find myself running with weapons i don’t like because the weapon combos i would like to play either don’t fit together or force me to run a build i don’t like or have 1 or 2 skills i use on regular basis while the rest is situational at best or extremly useless in pve at worst (while most likely good in pvp).
Any Guardians here that run sword+torch in broad daylight while dreaming of a sword shield pve build that is effective?
Or warriors that would like to play sword+sword but don’t because you don’t like condi builds?
Or any rangers that would like to give up a little cc on the shortbow to have a few more attacks to do in your typical pve fight?
Or Engineers that would like the choice between a rifle that works as a shotgun or like a typical ranged rifle?

@ Leron.7204

I redirect you to what I said earlier:

Dedalus.3065:

People seem to forget why Anet have implemented the combat system that they have. Having skills that correspond to weapons adds new depth to PVP battles. It allows experienced players who have played different professions to know that if they see a thief with dual daggers, then they can prepare for heartseeker spam (keep some dodge/stun left for his initiative burst). The combat system has incredible depth, and yes you can simply button smash and be done with it, but a player who knows his combo fields, who knows what his team needs and can read his enemy, he will be tremendously more successful compared to the button smasher.

Having fewer skills also means that positioning and movement becomes a lot more valuable. For example, the elementalist has a firegrab that does extra damage to a burning enemy and is on a 45 second cooldown. If the enemy can avoid that skill, then he has gained a distinct advantage over the elementalist, since eles don’t have that many bursty skills. However if the professions had more skills, then avoiding them becomes meaningless as they have something else that can fulfill that ability’s function anyway. This adds intensity and purpose to the combat and makes sure that if you’re not paying attention, then you’re at a disadvantage.

What you suggest could be good for PvE, but this is primarily a PvP game and I would hate to have what you suggest in PvP as it would remove a lot of strategy and skill.

The problem isn’t the number of skills- it’s the ineffectiveness of switching it up in pve. In pvp yes, the system works perfectly and every skill counts. In pve though they decided to make every skill viable not by making them powerful and unique like GW1 did- but by making them streamlined or less useful. GW2 in pve is simply put excessively bland- you’re a nobody doing nobody tasks with meh abilities you gain most of by level 5 in an 80 level game- and the ones you don’t are epic only in CD. Other than a few ‘must have’ or ‘must never take’ abilities (or the bajillion bugged necro abilities) in pve you can switch out almost anything and see almost no change in how you play the game.

Also- you don’t have 5 weapon abilities on your bar, you have 4 and an auto attack.

@ fungihoujo.8476

I can agree to a certain degree that the current combat experience in PvE can at times be rather boring and repetitive. However, I blame this on the enemies and not on the combat system itself. If you compare PvE and PvP enemies in GW2, you’ll notice that enemies in PVP have less HP but make up for it in movement and positioning, interesting attack patterns, they don’t turn 180 degrees on the spot, their attacks are more dangerous and so on.

I would implement mobs alike the giant from Nageling, ones that keep you on your toes. Give them wider aoe’s that damage a lot and make the general objective against them to be either avoid damage or stop the mobs from being able to deal damage (aka blinds, stuns, dodge, etc). The main purpose should always be to make the players feel like they lost because of their lack of skill and strategy, not because of giant HP bars and instakills you can’t do anything about.

If you increase the effectiveness of our abilities, then you must increase the difficulty through other means. Either by expanding hp bars (which would negate the effectiveness of the abilities once again) or make the enemies interesting like in PvP.

I dont think that the solution is to increase the number of skills but upgrade the skills we have now. For example from level 1-30 the skill for attack is 200 damage per hit, how about if we create a Skill Attack level II from levels 31-50 where the output is 400 damage per hit, etc etc, instead of new skills lets upgrade the skills we have now increasing the output of damage and AOE. Lets upgrade the skills maybe as follow: Going from level 1-30 (Level I skill)-, 31-50 (level II skill), 51-79 (level III skill) and when you reach level 80 make this skill an elite skill with some extra special effects added into it.

fixit.7189:

Try another class not thief, imo.

Easy mode class, is easy mode.

i certainly plan on it….but that doesn’t mean the class isn’t boring and a button mashing class

ive seen the guardian played first hand…..it doesn’t look much better…..cool down…cool down….cool down

fellyn.5083:

Play an elementalist and you get 20.

54 skills.

20 Main weapon
20 Trident
5 Heal/Utility/Elite
5 Underwater Heal/Utility/Elite
4 Attunements

Because if the OP is counting every single utterly situational/useless/ooc ability you can put on your action bar in WoW, then I am kitten well going to count my underwater skills.

Play an Engineer or Elementalist, and use more skills
???
Profit!

Also; no one really uses 40 skills at one time. 3/4 of skills in other MMOs are either just buffs that does nothing, or for show in order to make you feel more powerful as a player.

^^ in dark age i had roughly 40 abilities on my bars….and they all received extensive use

bads got away with using less….but then again…they were bads

I prefer this system a lot more than what other MMOs have. I’m tired of having 40 spells and abilites and I will only use 15 max.

Walker.2184:

^^ in dark age i had roughly 40 abilities on my bars….and they all received extensive use

bads got away with using less….but then again…they were bads

What were you playing that had 40 abilities that you used extensively?

My warden had 3 action bars full of abilities but a lot of them I used so infrequently I constantly had to remind myself what the icon was for. My other characters used far less.

Walker.2184:

^^ in dark age i had roughly 40 abilities on my bars….and they all received extensive use

bads got away with using less….but then again…they were bads

Yes!
And theres no fking rotation in daoc. The problem with the majority of topics here is that they always wind up bein a comparison to wow and/or its clones. NEWSFlASH….. Wow is/was a horrible game and each lame clone to come out since was fking horrible as well.
So, if all you know is bad and have nothing but bad to compare it to then yes the trinity system sucks, and yes having a bunch of useless abilities is lame.
Lets see on my mentalist, you would have nuke, aoe heal nuke, mez, stun, demez, 3 heals, a hot, quickcast, and thats bar 1 of 3 I would have. Everything got used every fight. Then i had all my realm abilities, champ abilities and master level abilities. Which were more situational and didnt get used all the time but there were only a few that never got used. Id say ibwould also have about 40 necessary spells/abilities. To the dude that said having limited abilities makes you think more, thanks, I had a nice laugh about that.

Kso.6458:

To the dude that said having limited abilities makes you think more, thanks, I had a nice laugh about that.

It makes you think more in the sense that rather than having all abilities “on tap” all the time, you have to think and choose before an encounter (i.e. you have to actually con the mobs, or have some idea of the encounter, so you know what you’re getting into), and then switch out weapons, utilities, heal and elite, to suit (i.e. to min-max your ability to get through that particular encounter).

Ofc you can spam the same 5 abilities, and you’ll probably do ok, and that’s WAI, because some people just like to spam a few abilities. But if you do like to cut the most elegant swathe through the mobs with most effect and least effort, then you can use the ability to swap weapons, utilities, heals and elites on the fly (out of combat, i.e. before encounters).

Really, the only functional difference between GW2 and the other games mentioned is that with one type of game you have instant access to all the abilities, and with GW2 you have to choose your loadout prior to encounters. There are easily enough abilities in GW2 to make for interesting gameplay, just as with any other MMO. (And as with other MMOs, some abilities are just fluff and some are highly situational.)

For myself, on each toon, I usually have 3 or 4 “neat tricks” on each Profession – some combination of weapons, utilities, heals and elites, that do something cool that I build around and gear around. Each “neat trick” will involve several keypresses and some weapon swapping.

It’s not really any better or worse than having all abilities on tap, it’s just different. Some people will prefer one style, others the other, but most people (I’ll wager) are comfortable with either.

Lord Awesomeness.1804:

Walker.2184:

^^ in dark age i had roughly 40 abilities on my bars….and they all received extensive use

bads got away with using less….but then again…they were bads

What were you playing that had 40 abilities that you used extensively?

My warden had 3 action bars full of abilities but a lot of them I used so infrequently I constantly had to remind myself what the icon was for. My other characters used far less.

i played several classes….but on top of classabilities and weapon styles there were realm abilities….master level abilities…champ abilities…..armor/weapon charges…potions

i had 3 full hotbars on my screen and had to toggle to another page on the main bar

Apparently – according to Colin’s Interview yesterday (which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8UFhfBl_PqU ) – Anet is currently “not working on developing new skills” in the game. That saddens me; but at the same time, I know they are working hard at the game so I won’t discredit them for making this decision; for now.

IE. The decision they made (apparently) is: to go with newer contents first than with combat skills and additional combat game plays (I think the new “dungeon” will be simply the same as traditional dungeon except it will be longer and maybe involving recorded progressions – so there won’t be any new mechanics invovled or if any you see; those mechanics will probably be just burrowed from mini games).

I prefer something in between GW2 and “other games”

I like having multiple hotbars that i can set out my skills on my own and arent looked like GW2. I like beeing able to set out food/pots/scrolls etc on them aswell.

However i dont like needing to press 40 different skills per fight.
Ele is bad enough.

The attunement/weapon changing im not a fan of though, weapon changing is better then attunement since with weapons you only need to change then go with that for the whole fight.