Good idea, in theory, but how is progression then determined? Just skills? People seem to love/hate masteries and the whole Metroidvania style, so where would progression come from?
The obtaining of skills through exploration as I mentioned below. Better equipment can also be a form of progression similar to how it was in GW1. No gear treadmill obviously, but have some of the more protective armors a bit harder to obtain. Have weapons with unique effects that are earned in more difficult content. Or perhaps have the higher end equipment be obtained by crafting or going on a quest to have an NPC craft it.
Honestly though, you don’t need THAT much progression. Once you hit max level and have the best gear do you just stop playing? Some do, I’m sure, but not most. Otherwise GW2 and GW1 would both have been dead in the water shortly after release. Cosmetics are an oddly sufficient goal for people to strive toward.
Effectively the difference between a maxed out character and a noob would be the maxed out character wearing crazy golden armor with a flaming sword and a huge kitten nal of skills from which to craft their builds, while the noob would be wearing rusty old chainmail with a chipped sword and only have the basic skills available.
Then just add achievements that you earn by doing difficult content, some designed to be done by everyone and some needing more optimized builds and a great deal of practice, and you have the carrot on the stick for players to continue playing. To develop actual skill at the game rather than better stats.
First part, impossible nowadays. The internet is much more refined than it was before, easily giving you locations of items and things. Something “hard to find” would stay hidden maybe a week before everyone knows it. As for the second part where skills are equal, easier said than done.
Difficult to find doesn’t necessarily mean difficult to locate. It could just as well be difficult to reach. In GW1 hunting the elite skill you wanted required you to fight through groups of enemies and kill a mini boss, stealing the skill from it once it was defeated. You could do something similar, but to add variety place skill teachers in similar areas and set it up so you need to earn the skills either with difficult content or with a small, and I do emphasize small, grind. So some skills are learned by seeking out masters and others by defeating powerful foes.
To prevent people from getting hung up on a specific type of content they are bad at and being unable to get the skills they need you could just make multiple redundant methods of getting them too. Don’t want to completely exclude casuals.
Yes, it was stupid and bad, hence why it was removed and we have what there is today.
And to combine the two quotes above, how can an elite be build defining, yet at the same time have equal ingenuity? Either the skill works with one skill, or doesn’t. And then there are the metas, and one skill working TOO well with another skill, causing one to get nerfed, which can hurt other skills…etc…etc…
A meta will always exist. However the creation of meta builds and the evolution of buildcraft to find a way to counter that meta is itself ingenuity. I personally like to have a wider range of options in what skills I’m taking, as it leads to a more diverse range of playstyles.
The problem with one skill over performing in relation to the others is a problem in every game ever created that gave different players different tools. It wouldn’t be unique to a skill based progression system. And of course, ideally you would obtain every skill your class is capable of using anyway as that is how you “max out” a character. At that point your character is flexible enough to weather even the harshest of nerfs.
Not so in the current system where a nerf to a trait or skill can render your entire build obsolete, along with the expensive gear you’ve worked toward getting. Burst guardian no longer viable? That armor just became useless, and you now have to buy a new set of gear all over again.
But at the same time, doesn’t this also remove creativity with builds? What about the people who run pure damage builds but use defensive armor (I use to in the beginning of GW2)? How bout an area where you can experiment with stat combos for free, but out in the environment, have to attain it? Part of experimenting is failure and the loss from it.
Not at all. It removes the impact gear has on your build, but replaces it with a different kind of variety in the form of more varied and impactful elite skills.
My biggest issue with gear isn’t just how prohibitive it is for testing builds, but also in switching them. As I said in the above segment it’s entirely likely that a single nerf to a skill may render your entire build ineffective, and thus your armor as well. Now you have to endure a multi-month long grind to get a new set of ascended gear.
If you truly want stats to effect the strength of abilities you can also just have a stat spread where you distribute points to different stats that are connected to the character, not their armor. That way if your build gets nerfed you merely need to re-allocate your physical stats to reflect the new build. No massive grind or huge money sink required.
It’s more realistic too. You train your body to be stronger or more nimble, not put on new pants.
I agree with this. If you build mostly for AOE, your single target suffers, and vice versa. Same with dmg and survivability, boons and debuffs. I like to think of it like a scale; when one side goes up, the other is going down.
I agree completely.
Body blocking NO. just no. its horrible.
Every game I’ve played has only been better without the ability to ghost through people to get to other people. It adds a new layer of strategy when you can’t just rush through that stalwart warrior with a tower shield who’s standing in a narrow passage. Naturally this would have to be turned off in towns, cities, and with non-hostiles to avoid griefers in PVE zones.
For rare I’m going to assume by your earlier statement in harder to obtain, which again, it won’t be harder to obtain, unless its RNG based. And there is a whole new can of worms making a skill RNG based capture.
In this instance by rare I mean less of them in the game. Just like the sliding scale of AoE vs Single Target damage, so too should there be a sliding scale of Damage vs Control. If you make a build dedicated to chain controlling someone so they can’t move you better have an ally dedicated to damage because you sure aren’t going to kill them like that.
Isn’t this already in the game? I mean, I know the skills may not all be different, but I feel this is already in the game.
To an extent, yes. But for the most part the game relies on numbers to keep lower level players from exploring areas they aren’t ready for. I was never found of training wheels. If a player is skilled enough to survive the upper level zones they should be able to play there without every creature being immune to their damage output and being one shot by every stray bunny that crosses their path.
There are two game modes. A third would be nice, but atm, improve on what they have before making anything new again.
Two game modes NOW. Three years later. Ideally there should have been at least three on game release. Having more gamemodes cuts down on frustrations with developing metas and “cheese tactics” because each gamemode would have it’s own meta. Don’t like playing against the meta of a particular game mode? Try Capture the Flag instead of King of the Hill! In Capture the Flag fast moving, agile builds are more viable than beefy bunker builds, and there’s less AoE spam.
Don’t feel like I’m picking on you, I just saw this was a detailed post and wanted to point at what flaws and problems you need to forsee when coming up with ideas.
In a creative process, the first step is to come up with something cool. Then the next step is think how can it be abused, and finally if it can be done at all.
Do not worry. I am not offended. Every human has their own view of what they might like, and having differing opinions is what makes life interesting.
