Guild Wars 2

The original Guild Wars was released with 6 professions, each with more or less 75 skills, in a total of more or less 450. The game was akittens peak, PvP wise and balance-wise, a bit before the release of Factions, the second chapter; that was when the best Korean guilds like War Machine and The Evil Empire gave shows of skill in the World Championship tournament in Taipei, for example. A couple years later, the game had 10 professions and more than one thousand skills, way more than ArenaNet could even hope to balance. The PvP community basically died, and PvE was filled with professions that were designed in groups only when using a single specific gimmick.

Now, in Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet has announced they are going to add more skills and traits. I can’t help but wonder if the game is really ready for that. Looking at guardians, mesmers, elementalists and necromancers, they appear to be somewhat balanced (despite how there are still many relatively useless skills and traits among those professions). Everything else… Just no. If ArenaNet has not even balanced what we have currently, what hope do they have of being able to deal with even more skills and traits?

I realize a lot of players want more skills. I also realize that, often, what players want is not what is best for a game.

In before everyone shouts who cares about PvP balance.

But yeah, you’re right. The devs already can’t balance the game as it is, there’s no way they’re going to balance it after they regularly add more skills. It’s very odd that they’re choosing to do this when tournaments and such are finally starting to somewhat to pick up, but it’s obvious their care for balance is minuscule at this point. ANet promised esport quality PvP, but GW2 is just another example of why PvP in MMOs will never truly become an esport (or have any sense of PvP balance for that matter).

The addition of skills-based progression is not really an issue of just adding more skills because we need more skills. Ability progression is rather a feature of horizontal progression. All games need a sense of character progression and ability progression tends to lead to a less grindy, more skill-based game. That’s the spirit I greet it with. Is balance an issue? Always, but whether the game scales vertically or horizontally balance will be an issue. I believe the direction they taken here is the right one.

Take a look at your Ranger, now take a look at my Guardian. Don’t you wish you’re Ranger could look like me, a Guardian? He could look like me, talk like me, and even smell like me. Take a look at your silly little Engineer, now look at my Elementalist, then back to your Engineer. Now your Engineer is an Elementalist because you’ve decided you want to do more damage.

I can just imagine this happening when Anet decides to release more skills. Rangers and Engineers will be completely obsolete. Heck, they’re already pretty much obsolete already. Both classes will either reroll to a different class or quit altogether.

I’ve been playing a Ranger since Guild Wars 1, and by now, I can pretty much sense when the class is going to get nerfed or stay the way it is: terrible. I can tell you right now that Ranger’s aren’t going to get improved any time soon, and with the addition of new skills, I can already see the skills Rangers are going to get. “Meatshield: Throw yourself into oncoming enemies…. deals 2000 damage… to you. Deals 10 damage to enemies.” "Useless DPS: Throw your pet at enemies and shout “useless!!!” at it, but it permanently destroys your pet forever."

I’m almost not joking about this either. This is pretty much how useful our skills are already. Our pets just got a huge nerf in dps, and are basically useless, we didn’t get improved, but got NERFED when all other classes got buffs, and our Longbow (The weapon that Rangers are SUPPOSED to use at all times) is less useful than the freaking short bow.

There is no balance here. There was no balance to begin with. There will never be balance, unless Anet employees learn to use the force and start giving out lightsabers to all Rangers and Engineers. Then, and only THEN, will all of the classes be balanced.

Bla Bla Bla, my class sucks.

I have all professions with all skills unlocked. How do you know that the game will be more unbalanced with new skills? How do you know they wont continue balancing the skills? Because you dont like the latest patch?

We dont know that but we know one thing, having a choice is better than none. More skills = more builds for both PvE and PvP. Hell, engineers only get to use one elite skill. How long do you want to keep it that way? Give it a chance!

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Bla Bla Bla, my class sucks.

I have all professions with all skills unlocked. How do you know that the game will be more unbalanced with new skills? How do you know they wont continue balancing the skills? Because you dont like the latest patch?

We dont know that but we know one thing, having a choice is better than none. More skills = more builds for both PvE and PvP. Hell, engineers only get to use one elite skill. How long do you want to keep it that way? Give it a chance!

We know because this happened in Guild Wars 1 and they’re trying the exact same thing in Guild Wars 2: adding more skills. That’s the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. The results will be the same as they were in guild wars 1 and all classes will be even more unbalanced because of it.

Indeed.

Fix what is currently there instead of piling on more crap.

but GW2 doesn’t have enough skills to begin with. Incase you haven’t noticed, GW1 is not the same as GW2. playstyle and even the development team is different.

Guardians have 4 shouts, 3 of them defensive. Warriors cant kite. Thieves have next to no support, etc..

Half of the builds, and 1/3 elites dont work underwater.

Saying no to new skills doesn’t guarantee that they will focus on the current ones. It just means they should stop working on improving the game.

And yet there were other players before this annoucement crying for more skill diversity >.< Can’t please everyone I guess.

But yes, I would definitely like more skills. My primary concern with simply focusing on living world content was the stagnation of core game, I don’t want to be stuck with the same pool of skills forever. Give me new and interestingz magicz.

The game will have been out for a year soon, by all means BRING ON THE SKILLS.

I had a ranger in GW1, I alternate between my interupt and beastmaster build for PvE and Touch for PvP. I wouldn’t be able to make my touch ranger without Prophecies + Fractions. Are you saying GW1 should have stuck to just Prophecies and that would solve all balance issues?

Back to GW2, more skills equals (for my main-Engi)

-new turrets
-new kits, dare i say melee kits
-gadget love
-more tanking skills rather than cc
-using something besides Crate Drop Elite

My Necro could use another Well skill as well as skills i can use underwater… and so on. How will focusing on balancing the current skills give me these things?

Orion the Cursed.1206:

I had a ranger in GW1, I alternate between my interupt and beastmaster build for PvE and Touch for PvP. I wouldn’t be able to make my touch ranger without Prophecies + Fractions. Are you saying GW1 should have stuck to just Prophecies and that would solve all balance issues?

No, but the release of Factions (and later Nightfall and to a lesser extent EotN) was the reason that balance went completely out the window. You see, Prophecies was the most balanced GW1 ever was. Factions came with assassins/ritualists, which were just completely broken at release, along with other skills for the original classes that were completely unbalanced. Now, ANet had no choice but to release new classes/skills with Factions, it was a new campaign. Right now ANet has the chance to make an actual attempt at balancing what we have now before adding new skills. Judging by the way GW1 went for over half a decade and how GW2 has gone the past 11 months, ANet is going to handle it poorly and drive whatever “balance” is left in this game right into the ground.

Right now ANet is trying to cater to too many people (just as they did in GW1), and the end result is going to be poor. They’re seriously contradicting themselves by finally trying to make PvP somewhat decent while saying they’re going to regularly add more skills to the game.

For the record, I’m not saying they shouldn’t add more skills. It’s inevitable, it adds variety, people want it. I’m saying they should at least get what we have now right (ok, they can’t get it right, but they should at least make more effort) before digging themselves a deeper hole. Anyone who played GW1 knows that ANet has always been god awful at balance, which is why this shouldn’t be rushed.

PVStar.3658:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

I had a ranger in GW1, I alternate between my interupt and beastmaster build for PvE and Touch for PvP. I wouldn’t be able to make my touch ranger without Prophecies + Fractions. Are you saying GW1 should have stuck to just Prophecies and that would solve all balance issues?

No, but the release of Factions (and later Nightfall and to a lesser extent EotN) was the reason that balance went completely out the window. You see, Prophecies was the most balanced GW1 ever was. Factions came with assassins/ritualists, which were just completely broken at release, along with other skills for the original classes that were completely unbalanced. Now, ANet had no choice but to release new classes/skills with Factions, it was a new campaign. Right now ANet has the chance to make an actual attempt at balancing what we have now before adding new skills. Judging by the way GW1 went for over half a decade and how GW2 has gone the past 11 months, ANet is going to handle it poorly and drive whatever “balance” is left in this game right into the ground.

Right now ANet is trying to cater to too many people (just as they did in GW1), and the end result is going to be poor. They’re seriously contradicting themselves by finally trying to make PvP somewhat decent while saying they’re going to regularly add more skills to the game.

For the record, I’m not saying they shouldn’t add more skills. It’s inevitable, it adds variety, people want it. I’m saying they should at least get what we have now right (ok, they can’t get it right, but they should at least make more effort) before digging themselves a deeper hole. Anyone who played GW1 knows that ANet has always been god awful at balance, which is why this shouldn’t be rushed.

But according to you, even if they spent another year balancing the current skill… as long as they release new content, its going to be unbalanced anyways correct?

So why not make it an ongoing process. Spend 80% of their time on balancing and 20% on new skills? Thats my argument.

unless you are saying they shouldn’t have released anything past Prophecies…

Orion the Cursed.1206:

but GW2 doesn’t have enough skills to begin with. Incase you haven’t noticed, GW1 is not the same as GW2. playstyle and even the development team is different.

Guardians have 4 shouts, 3 of them defensive. Warriors cant kite. Thieves have next to no support, etc..

Half of the builds, and 1/3 elites dont work underwater.

Saying no to new skills doesn’t guarantee that they will focus on the current ones. It just means they should stop working on improving the game.

That’s what we need, underwater only utilities and elites!
Seriously, somehow I can see this happening =/

They can’t even balance the traits and skills they have now. Adding in more will be hilarious.

Evans.6347:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

but GW2 doesn’t have enough skills to begin with. Incase you haven’t noticed, GW1 is not the same as GW2. playstyle and even the development team is different.

Guardians have 4 shouts, 3 of them defensive. Warriors cant kite. Thieves have next to no support, etc..

Half of the builds, and 1/3 elites dont work underwater.

Saying no to new skills doesn’t guarantee that they will focus on the current ones. It just means they should stop working on improving the game.

That’s what we need, underwater only utilities and elites!
Seriously, somehow I can see this happening =/

I didnt say “underwater only”. How about some wells and traps that work for both land and underwater huh? I can’t swap my traits everytime i jump into the water.

That’s why Anet should follow the Magic: the Gathering model (Type II/Standard) where skills expire as new ones are added. Thus there is always the same number of skills in the game making it easier to balance while the game stays fresh as new skills are routinely added.

Moreover, this system allows Anet to be more bold in introducing new and interesting mechanics since they’ll all expire in time anyway so damage to the game from such experimentation is limited.

As it is, Anet already can’t handle balance with the traits and skills we have now, there’s no way they’ll be able to balance with more traits and more skills. It seems Anet learned absolutely nothing from their experience with GW1.

Lord Kuru.3685:

That’s why Anet should follow the Magic: the Gathering model (Type II/Standard) where skills expire as new ones are added. Thus there is always the same number of skills in the game making it easier to balance while the game stays fresh as new skills are routinely added.

Moreover, this system allows Anet to be more bold in introducing new and interesting mechanics since they’ll all expire in time anyway so damage to the game from such experimentation is limited.

As it is, Anet already can’t handle balance with the traits and skills we have now, there’s no way they’ll be able to balance with more traits and more skills. It seems Anet learned absolutely nothing from their experience with GW1.

You want SKILLS to be temporary content now? We’re talking about SKILLSSSSS a core feature of the game? Could it get more controversial than this? Just wait ‘til all the players come whining to the forums about being upset that they couldn’t play when skill “so and so” was active and their class was OP. >.<

There are currently not nearly enough skills, which kills build diversity. More skills will allow better balance at this point because not everything hinges on 1 or 2 key skills anymore.

Guild Wars 2 can’t be compared to Guild Wars 1 when it comes to adding skills. Guild Wars 1 became unbalanced because of too many skills. GW2 is currently unbalanced because of too few.

As for insanity … too keep balancing this far too narrow skillset and expecting to achieve balance … _that_’s insanity.

Latorn.4209:

Lord Kuru.3685:

That’s why Anet should follow the Magic: the Gathering model (Type II/Standard) where skills expire as new ones are added. Thus there is always the same number of skills in the game making it easier to balance while the game stays fresh as new skills are routinely added.

Moreover, this system allows Anet to be more bold in introducing new and interesting mechanics since they’ll all expire in time anyway so damage to the game from such experimentation is limited.

As it is, Anet already can’t handle balance with the traits and skills we have now, there’s no way they’ll be able to balance with more traits and more skills. It seems Anet learned absolutely nothing from their experience with GW1.

You want SKILLS to be temporary content now? We’re talking about SKILLSSSSS a core feature of the game? Could it get more controversial than this? Just wait ‘til all the players come whining to the forums about being upset that they couldn’t play when skill “so and so” was active and their class was OP. >.<

LOL… good point. If this had been implemented in game when it first came out there would be less resistance. Nevertheless, despite the inevitable rage, I feel it’s still the way to go; adding more and more skills is just asking for an unbalanceable situation no matter how skilled Anet is at balancing.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Latorn.4209:

Lord Kuru.3685:

That’s why Anet should follow the Magic: the Gathering model (Type II/Standard) where skills expire as new ones are added. Thus there is always the same number of skills in the game making it easier to balance while the game stays fresh as new skills are routinely added.

Moreover, this system allows Anet to be more bold in introducing new and interesting mechanics since they’ll all expire in time anyway so damage to the game from such experimentation is limited.

As it is, Anet already can’t handle balance with the traits and skills we have now, there’s no way they’ll be able to balance with more traits and more skills. It seems Anet learned absolutely nothing from their experience with GW1.

You want SKILLS to be temporary content now? We’re talking about SKILLSSSSS a core feature of the game? Could it get more controversial than this? Just wait ‘til all the players come whining to the forums about being upset that they couldn’t play when skill “so and so” was active and their class was OP. >.<

LOL… good point. If this had been implemented in game when it first came out there would be less resistance. Nevertheless, despite the inevitable rage, I feel it’s still the way to go; adding more and more skills is just asking for an unbalanceable situation no matter how skilled Anet is at balancing.

All i can say is thakittens a very ambitious plan. They would have to come up with a whole set (hundreds) every change and we would have to adapt every time.

In mtg, we have to buy (pay for) our cards every time often but in rpg, this will mean we have to somehow re-aquire our skills every change. Not to mention change our builds. Mtg didnt start rotating standard until they hav too many cards they wanted to ban from tourneys suck as black lotus, Mox, and dual lands.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

All i can say is thakittens a very ambitious plan. They would have to come up with a whole set (hundreds) every change and we would have to adapt every time.

In mtg, we have to buy (pay for) our cards every time often but in rpg, this will mean we have to somehow re-aquire our skills every change. Not to mention change our builds. Mtg didnt start rotating standard until they hav too many cards they wanted to ban from tourneys suck as black lotus, Mox, and dual lands.

They can do like MTG and do only a few skills every few months: for example 1/3 of the skills every 4 months. The change wouldn’t be as jarring for players, and balancing would be easier as 2/3 of the skills would remain unchanged each time.

For example, Necros have around 60 skills total. Changing 1/3 would only mean 20 new skills every 4 months.

As for reacquiring skills; they can either make it automatic: the new skills simply replace the old ones; or make getting the new skills part of the fun.. for example, make it part of completing the current Living Story (I’d prefer the former).

I think the most important feature of this scheme is that it keeps the game from getting stale while always having a balanceable number of skills.

It was ready for more skills from day one. It should’ve been shipped with more skills.

I have been wanting more skills and skill capture since beta. It is one of the features of GW1 that I really found fun.

I’ll trust Anet to determine when that is appropriate to do, but I sure am looking forward to that day.

Galtrix.7369:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Bla Bla Bla, my class sucks.

I have all professions with all skills unlocked. How do you know that the game will be more unbalanced with new skills? How do you know they wont continue balancing the skills? Because you dont like the latest patch?

We dont know that but we know one thing, having a choice is better than none. More skills = more builds for both PvE and PvP. Hell, engineers only get to use one elite skill. How long do you want to keep it that way? Give it a chance!

We know because this happened in Guild Wars 1 and they’re trying the exact same thing in Guild Wars 2: adding more skills. That’s the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. The results will be the same as they were in guild wars 1 and all classes will be even more unbalanced because of it.

Lol, someone plays Far Cry 3 :p

To be honest, ANet might be doing something similar, but that doesn’t mean it’s exactly the same. We can still hope that some of the new skills will serve to balance out some of the less useful ones now. What if they make it so they form new and interesting combo fields, for instance. So using one skill that was previously uninteresting in combination with a new one they add suddenly creates something amazing.

We’ll never be able to start judging this process properly until we see what they add and how they go about adding it. I, personally, don’t find that my ranger performs any worse than it did prior to this last big patch – but then I PvE only, so maybe that’s why. I’m not saying people who DO notice a difference are wrong, but I’m also saying that for some, the difference is negligible. You can’t please everyone.

Until we get a flavour of the new skills being added, we should maybe reserve absolute judgement about it. We can be wary, excited, interested, a combination of any of these, but we can’t make absolute statements.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

We dont know that but we know one thing, having a choice is better than none. More skills = more builds for both PvE and PvP.

IMO, a choice between bad, worse and terrible is not a choice …

I never played GW1, but have played GW2 since launch. There is nothing over the past 11 months that tells me more skills will be ‘better’, particularly for rangers and engineers.

If you think more skills will be a magic bullet that fixes the balance issues, then I am afraid you will be very disappointed …

Lord Kuru.3685:

Latorn.4209:

Lord Kuru.3685:

That’s why Anet should follow the Magic: the Gathering model (Type II/Standard) where skills expire as new ones are added. Thus there is always the same number of skills in the game making it easier to balance while the game stays fresh as new skills are routinely added.

Moreover, this system allows Anet to be more bold in introducing new and interesting mechanics since they’ll all expire in time anyway so damage to the game from such experimentation is limited.

As it is, Anet already can’t handle balance with the traits and skills we have now, there’s no way they’ll be able to balance with more traits and more skills. It seems Anet learned absolutely nothing from their experience with GW1.

You want SKILLS to be temporary content now? We’re talking about SKILLSSSSS a core feature of the game? Could it get more controversial than this? Just wait ‘til all the players come whining to the forums about being upset that they couldn’t play when skill “so and so” was active and their class was OP. >.<

LOL… good point. If this had been implemented in game when it first came out there would be less resistance. Nevertheless, despite the inevitable rage, I feel it’s still the way to go; adding more and more skills is just asking for an unbalanceable situation no matter how skilled Anet is at balancing.

Imagine for a moment that there’s not enough skills in the game atm for proper balancing to be possible. Imagine that adding skills may be the solution here, whereas in GW1 it was the cause for imbalance. Imagine you might be wrong.

Especially in case of elites. With only 3 elites per profession, achieving balance is not possible, since build diversity is reduced to nothingness. Engineers de facto only have 1 elite. Other professions might as well have none. Adding 5 elites per profession would improve balance instead of reducing it. By adding a good number of utilities too, a real meta could develop which auto-balances as skill use shifts.

Without increase in the amount of skill, balance will not happen in GW2. That’s the current situation and it’s blatantly obvious to those who played GW1.

bri.2359:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

We dont know that but we know one thing, having a choice is better than none. More skills = more builds for both PvE and PvP.

IMO, a choice between bad, worse and terrible is not a choice …

I never played GW1, but have played GW2 since launch. There is nothing over the past 11 months that tells me more skills will be ‘better’, particularly for rangers and engineers.

If you think more skills will be a magic bullet that fixes the balance issues, then I am afraid you will be very disappointed …

because you know the new skills will be worst? You have played gw2 since launch and every time they added new skills it got worst huh? You mean that one time that they added Mistfire Wolf and no new skills since then?

also you didnt read past that part did you? Please quote where i said it will fix everything? i specifically said the OPPOSITE thing!

marnick.4305:

Imagine for a moment that there’s not enough skills in the game atm for proper balancing to be possible. Imagine that adding skills may be the solution here, whereas in GW1 it was the cause for imbalance. Imagine you might be wrong.

Especially in case of elites. With only 3 elites per profession, achieving balance is not possible, since build diversity is reduced to nothingness. Engineers de facto only have 1 elite. Other professions might as well have none. Adding 5 elites per profession would improve balance instead of reducing it. By adding a good number of utilities too, a real meta could develop which auto-balances as skill use shifts.

Without increase in the amount of skill, balance will not happen in GW2. That’s the current situation and it’s blatantly obvious to those who played GW1.

Interesting! Let’s say Anet adds enough skills so that every profession does have several reasonable builds. What then? They can’t keep adding skills forever or we’ll reach an unbalanceable point, but if they keep things static, players may get bored.

So maybe add enough skills so that the number is high enough that multiple builds are viable for each profession, and then go the MTG way?

I also really like the MTG way because it encourages the devs to be more bold in creating new mechanics. As it is, because skills are more or less “permanent,” I feel the devs are a bit conservative in terms of trying new things.

@LordKuru

Marnik never said to keep adding skills after the first increase. After adding new skills naturally they will balance it accordingly. The second set of new skills shouldn’t occur till 2015 or beyond.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

because you know the new skills will be worst?

And you know more skills will be better how??

Look, Anet cannot balance what they have now. It does not take much to see more skills will compound this. Having played a ranger since launch, I have felt the pointy end of Anet’s so-called ‘balancing’ efforts. More skills for a broken class will only make it worse, not better.

My worse fear is for my guardian becoming broken through Anet’s clumsy efforts.

There is one big difference: GW1 hat Dualprofessions which made balancing nearly impossible since there were millions if not billions of combinations. This is not possible in GW2 anymore. Aside from this, I don’t think the game is unbalanced. It’s a typical community issue. They play a certain class with certain skills and can do well, but there is one other class with a certain build and will completely destroy it. Is this unbalance? No, be cause this one may be bad against other classes/builds. So what, just enjoy the game and don’t complain in forums.

PVStar.3658:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

I had a ranger in GW1, I alternate between my interupt and beastmaster build for PvE and Touch for PvP. I wouldn’t be able to make my touch ranger without Prophecies + Fractions. Are you saying GW1 should have stuck to just Prophecies and that would solve all balance issues?

No, but the release of Factions (and later Nightfall and to a lesser extent EotN) was the reason that balance went completely out the window. You see, Prophecies was the most balanced GW1 ever was. Factions came with assassins/ritualists, which were just completely broken at release, along with other skills for the original classes that were completely unbalanced. Now, ANet had no choice but to release new classes/skills with Factions, it was a new campaign. Right now ANet has the chance to make an actual attempt at balancing what we have now before adding new skills. Judging by the way GW1 went for over half a decade and how GW2 has gone the past 11 months, ANet is going to handle it poorly and drive whatever “balance” is left in this game right into the ground.

Right now ANet is trying to cater to too many people (just as they did in GW1), and the end result is going to be poor. They’re seriously contradicting themselves by finally trying to make PvP somewhat decent while saying they’re going to regularly add more skills to the game.

For the record, I’m not saying they shouldn’t add more skills. It’s inevitable, it adds variety, people want it. I’m saying they should at least get what we have now right (ok, they can’t get it right, but they should at least make more effort) before digging themselves a deeper hole. Anyone who played GW1 knows that ANet has always been god awful at balance, which is why this shouldn’t be rushed.

GW1 person here. This is by far the most reasonable post I’ve seen in the thread. Alongside maybe the MTG suggestion, but that would have to come at an in-between point when they’ve decently sorted out the current balance and metagame, I think.

Personally, I think it would make more sense to do what they did in GW1 right now as the current skillpool and amount of traits is small, which is to separate the skills and traits into PvE and PvP types. In doing so, they can then balance them accordingly without the changes seeming too over the top for one side of the community or the other. Correct me if I’m mistaken here, as I don’t think that’s currently how the skills and traits are being handled, but I haven’t toyed with PvP enough to notice. The little experience I’ve had with PvP suggests that it is not so.

ProtoGunner.4953:

There is one big difference: GW1 hat Dualprofessions which made balancing nearly impossible since there were millions if not billions of combinations. This is not possible in GW2 anymore. Aside from this, I don’t think the game is unbalanced. It’s a typical community issue. They play a certain class with certain skills and can do well, but there is one other class with a certain build and will completely destroy it. Is this unbalance? No, be cause this one may be bad against other classes/builds. So what, just enjoy the game and don’t complain in forums.

O_o I don’t understand this perspective much. If you don’t want to see complaining/critiquing/criticism, don’t go into threads where it’s easy to tell that will be occurring. Forums are for discussion which happens to include complaints, and the topics that are primarily complaints can usually be told apart from those that aren’t by the titles alone. Practice a little better judgment and distinction when going through threads and you’ll have a much better time, trust me. It’s like complaining about spoilers when you can fairly easily avoid them by more careful reading (which then allows you to skip the spoilers quite easily).

More skills would be awesome.
It would maybe lead to a more player-run balance, than having to play almost predefined dev-build builds.

Lord Kuru.3685:

marnick.4305:

Imagine for a moment that there’s not enough skills in the game atm for proper balancing to be possible. Imagine that adding skills may be the solution here, whereas in GW1 it was the cause for imbalance. Imagine you might be wrong.

Especially in case of elites. With only 3 elites per profession, achieving balance is not possible, since build diversity is reduced to nothingness. Engineers de facto only have 1 elite. Other professions might as well have none. Adding 5 elites per profession would improve balance instead of reducing it. By adding a good number of utilities too, a real meta could develop which auto-balances as skill use shifts.

Without increase in the amount of skill, balance will not happen in GW2. That’s the current situation and it’s blatantly obvious to those who played GW1.

Interesting! Let’s say Anet adds enough skills so that every profession does have several reasonable builds. What then? They can’t keep adding skills forever or we’ll reach an unbalanceable point, but if they keep things static, players may get bored.

So maybe add enough skills so that the number is high enough that multiple builds are viable for each profession, and then go the MTG way?

I also really like the MTG way because it encourages the devs to be more bold in creating new mechanics. As it is, because skills are more or less “permanent,” I feel the devs are a bit conservative in terms of trying new things.

That’s indeed the point where they should go MTG.

I believe the magic number is in 5 more elites, 10-20 more utilities and 3 more healing skills per profession. Even at 2 skills per month, it’ll take more than a year to get there.

On how to implement the MTG, there’s several options. One would be Codex Arena style, but far slower. The other would be to Smiter Boon anything that’s temporary out of rotation.

marnick.4305:

That’s indeed the point where they should go MTG.

I believe the magic number is in 5 more elites, 10-20 more utilities and 3 more healing skills per profession. Even at 2 skills per month, it’ll take more than a year to get there.

On how to implement the MTG, there’s several options. One would be Codex Arena style, but far slower. The other would be to Smiter Boon anything that’s temporary out of rotation.

I think your numbers for skills are good.

Considering each skill theme (for example “Corruption”, or “Wells” for necros) is made up of 4-5 skills, I’d like to see closer to 20 new skills per profession.

As a player, I’d like to see them introduced all at once (or maybe in two batches) as that seems more exciting.

Let’s hope the new skills start coming soon!

IMHO:

1) ANet already failed to FIX the skills before balancing them.
They based their balancing on many broken skills that, if working like intended, would change the whole game balance.
What ANet did looked like they have no idea how to properly maintain the existing skills and traits. You dont need skills in programming to realize, that the thing to fix first is the base, not the top of the mountain.

Right now there are still to many broken traits that really need a fix.

2) With adding more skills and traits while not having fixed and balanced the old skills, ANet is basicly just ignoring the problem by adding MORE problems.
More skills to fix and balance. Old skills might need additional balancing to compensate the new skills – a vicious cycle

3) Saying the above this might sound stupid, but:
We also NEED new Skills and Traits.
So many classes are cornered into 1/2 viable builds. (Take the ranger: BM/Spirit or gtfo) We need a REAL build diversity and therefore we need new skills, new traits, new weapons or secondary weaponskillsets.
If ANet does a good job here, this could give the game the depth it needs.
Character development is very superficial. Very easy to access and no way of “perfection”.

To take the less vs more skills argument to it’s logical extreme, we end up in a game with three skills namely rock, paper and scissors. That game is perfectly balanced, but also inherently boring. It’s not possible to balance without adding items and rules.

The other logical extreme would be Warmachine first edition, where everything was balanced because everything was broken. That game got the harshest overhaul imaginable to turn it into a competitive game again. In the same vein, Guild Wars 1 lost any balance in the end due to the amount of skills. This is one of the reasons for the current skill system in GW2.

There’s an optimum somewhere, and it’s not easy to predict where it lies exactly. That’s why we can debate it. My stance is a lack of skills leading to lack of meta, leading to lack of balance. Some believe the current set has to be balanced first.

Yes we need new traits and skills but only some classes need this mainly Rangers and Engineers, which need a total overhaul (in a positive sense) rather than nerfing. Anet really create so much work for themselves when there is a simple logical approach to help them , that is listen to your customer base, go in and investigate with time taken in game as R&D in WVW, PVP etc and see where the problems lie. You have to do as the locals do in essence to truly understand the game they created. I run as a GM in another virtual worlds developing RPG scenarios, my day is spent listening to many points of view from various players.When you do this not only do you increase loyalty and interest amongst players, you can re-address faults and suggestions to an advantage to make a better environment. In essence they do that but on the other hand they seem to listen to PVP QQs rather than asking the people of professions what issues they face constantly as development research ( I talk of WVW people). Often nerfing what really should not be and ignoring the glaring ones that bash them in the face each day.

In short I think we need skills but I think skills that correspond to what world you play in, PVE don’t need much, some PVP needs a little refinement. WVW though needs a huge overhaul, developing better AOE skills for players such as rangers, homing grenades for engies etc. At this point Anet, I wish to make the suggestion for Anti Zerg Atomic grenade for us WVW engies… wait no The Holy Hand Grenade of Ascalon would be better , I can see the population for us " inferior engies" triple if we had that “then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Ascalon towards thy static field foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it”

marnick.4305:

Especially in case of elites. With only 3 elites per profession, achieving balance is not possible, since build diversity is reduced to nothingness. Engineers de facto only have 1 elite. Other professions might as well have none

IMO, this is more a sign that those elites need to be reworked so they would effectively be new skills (keeping just the same name) than that we would need more elites. If ArenaNet adds 5 more elite skills, those 2 engineer ones will continue to be useless; if ArenaNet reworks them into something useful, it would be as if the profession got two new skills, without in fact add more skills to the game, and while improving balance instead of removing it.

This is the path I would like ArenaNet to follow. Take all nearly useless skills and traits, and rework them into different functionalities so they become useful. We would end with more variety than we have today with the same number of skills, and players would have new toys to play with.

Erasculio.2914:

IMO, this is more a sign that those elites need to be reworked so they would effectively be new skills (keeping just the same name) than that we would need more elites. If ArenaNet adds 5 more elite skills, those 2 engineer ones will continue to be useless; if ArenaNet reworks them into something useful, it would be as if the profession got two new skills, without in fact add more skills to the game, and while improving balance instead of removing it.

This is the path I would like ArenaNet to follow. Take all nearly useless skills and traits, and rework them into different functionalities so they become useful. We would end with more variety than we have today with the same number of skills, and players would have new toys to play with.

Personally, I HATE when Anet does this (this is a big part of what made me quit GW1).
I hated when I took a hiatus and came back with skills having become completely different. That’s why I’m a big advocate of the Magic the Gathering method of rotating out skills and bringing in new ones: players expect the change and expect skills to rotate out — you don’t get the “you killed my build” QQ.

(For example, I liked Spectral Wall as it was and now it’s basically completely different.)

By the way, even if they rework elites, the fact is that there are very few of them so that build diversity is still limited.

There are parts of this game that truly need more choices to be available. Though at some point, choice kills. Maybe more will be great, maybe not so much. The only way to find out is to try.

Yes. They promised me that GW2 will take everything I loved about GW1, this is their chance to prove they didn’t lie, give me at least 3 options for each weapon skill slot.

PVStar.3658:

No, but the release of Factions (and later Nightfall and to a lesser extent EotN) was the reason that balance went completely out the window. You see, Prophecies was the most balanced GW1 ever was.

No, actually, the reason balance went completely out the window is that people learned how to play the game.

People are nostalgic for the early days not because it was better balanced, but because no one knew what they were doing yet and a lot more stuff appeared viable. There were really only half a dozen viable characters that fit into 3, maybe 4 different total builds that were just better than everything else.

All the variety and depth you saw early in the season were just people trying to figure things out.

The actual balance peak of the game was closer to the end of Factions. That was roughly where the largest number of builds, characters, and strategies were considered viable. If there was a golden age in GW1, that was it.

Balance wise, no. Content wise, yes. The ideal thing would be if the new skills also helped fix the current balance problems. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

New utilities are almost certainly going to be good for balance. They get to make skills that plug holes in ways that are a lot less disruptive and that have a lot more freedom than re-working an existing skill. There’s a lot of potential for good there.

New weapons are going to be a bit more tricky. Many of their current weapon designs are pretty terrible and they haven’t gotten any love at all. Unlike utilities I don’t think they want to orphan really iconic weapons like, oh, scepter Elementalist or mace Warrior. They can’t fix that by adding more obscure weapons to each class. At their current rate it would take them years to clean up the current set of weapons, so I’m pretty skeptical about dropping a bunch of new ones into the game.

adding a little skills in at a time is a great idea to keep the new playstyles that are incoming balanced.

its pretty much akin to how league of legends adds in a champion every so often but it comes out fairly balanced because its just one champion at a time every month or so.

from what i understand the skills and traits are going to be released regularly which will allow fresh playstyles on the way.

Galtrix.7369:

Orion the Cursed.1206:

Bla Bla Bla, my class sucks.

I have all professions with all skills unlocked. How do you know that the game will be more unbalanced with new skills? How do you know they wont continue balancing the skills? Because you dont like the latest patch?

We dont know that but we know one thing, having a choice is better than none. More skills = more builds for both PvE and PvP. Hell, engineers only get to use one elite skill. How long do you want to keep it that way? Give it a chance!

We know because this happened in Guild Wars 1 and they’re trying the exact same thing in Guild Wars 2: adding more skills. That’s the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. The results will be the same as they were in guild wars 1 and all classes will be even more unbalanced because of it.

yes, yes… lets just make all classes have 25 dmg on all weapons like in SAB. that is balance:P

i want more skills. ill balance it out with my build. if something is too strong i will make build to defeat it. gw1 ftw!

also, only 3 utility skills is gonna be much easier to balance than what we had in glorious gw1.

This initiative on ANet’s part reminds me of PvE skills in GW. While I enjoyed them, they were in some cases more powerful than elite skills, and trivialized much of the earlier content. GW2 does not have a lot of room for more trivialization of content, especially as they are planning to go through with the rest of Ascended, which means “moar stats.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

…. unless …

They’re only new Weapons Bars.

>.>
<.<
…Rangers should get Hammers…. just for the lulz

…

ALSO.

PVE SKILL SPLITS FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BEFORE YOU EVEN CONSIDER NEW PVP SKILLS