Guild Wars 2

Hey there!

So recently it was revealed that you’ll be getting new skills coming this time around. That’s great and all and I love that we’re seeing new skills. However, how you’re having us to acquire them is a bit bad. You use skill points to unlock them in PvE.

What do you think of this acquisition method? Is this suitable progression for you or would you rather have it another way? If so whats you’re idea.

I’ll give my personal opinion on the matter.

Personally I hate gathering and crafting. As a result, I never used my skill points on any of my characters. Combine with items that give you skill points, I have a TON. My main has something close to 300.

In my opinion, you need to have us do stuff in game if you want us to have skill progression. That is why gw1 had such an awesome skill progression. You didn’t just use skill points and boom. You actually had to hunt down a specific enemy who had specific strategies that you had to master for your class to take down. What you should have done is made it so we unlock it when we do a certain event in the open world. It could be class based. We would have to do this event which was tough to a certain degree (liadari of darkness tough would be awesome, though I think too many people didn’t like that. So a bit easier)

Progression needs to take time. Since there aren’t too many good skillpoint drains for none grinders/gatherers, I know a lot of people have a huge amount of skill points sitting around. They’ll probably buy the skill instantly and then go back to what they usual do with no change in the endgame progression for them.

Anyways thats my opinion on the matter.

Hunting skills in gw1 was fun because there were so many to acquire. Gw2 by comparoson has hardly any skills, so the effort of finding them would not take very long. But they also just cant add more skills, because having so many skills made the game too hard to balance. You can’t have the best of both worlds.

I wouldn’t say the acquisition is bad, just not exciting. It might be nice to do a series of events to unlock new skills, similar to personal story maybe (without the cut scenes), but I don’t know.

I’ll probably just buy any that look interesting with my massive bag of skill points and move on.

(edit for spelling)

Having these skills unlock the same way existing skills do is bad? Not every character is 80 and sitting on top of a giant heap of stockpiled skill points. For those of us who make alts, or for any new players that may yet join (unlikely as that seems), having these skills treated no differently from existing skills is not a problem.

Melchior.2135:

Having these skills unlock the same way existing skills do is bad? Not every character is 80 and sitting on top of a giant heap of stockpiled skill points. For those of us who make alts, or for any new players that may yet join (unlikely as that seems), having these skills treated no differently from existing skills is not a problem.

In my eyes it is. I mean I could get 25 skills in a couple of days by doing a champion train. Playing 2-3 hours a day I regained my skillpoints lost from buying that one healing skill for the living story.

In fact it would not be that much of a difference for alts. You’ll be doing a event chain so you got exp. You’ll be getting money and karma. You’ll be interacting with other players (cause leveling alts in empty zones like they all are outside of the starting zone is so fun).

They way I see it doing the way I suggested would give you the following.

1. Strong Community
2. Interesting endgame progression that isn’t grinding
3. A better sense of accomplishment and satisfaction by doing something hard.
4. Endgame players have something to do. I know Im not the only person with a ton of skillpoints. IF they continue doing skills like this, they will need to release a new skill each week to get those skillpoints down from asburd amounts or give us something to spend them on.
5. Populate dead zones with a new meta and a skill unlock

I mean some of the best community interaction I had since release (because everyone was new and exploring the game still. I loved showing people secret stuff, events, etc) was at the queens gauntlent. I’d discuss strategies, give tips, and talk to people. It was fun. I’d love to see a more developed and refined mechanic of it.

The skill point system also doesn’t due justice to the amazing world Anet spent thousands on making.

Sube Dai.8496:

Hunting skills in gw1 was fun because there were so many to acquire. Gw2 by comparoson has hardly any skills, so the effort of finding them would not take very long.

This.

Sube Dai.8496:

But they also just cant add more skills, because having so many skills made the game too hard to balance. You can’t have the best of both worlds.

This is a major problem. Without new skills, the game gets stale. So Anet either has to get better at balancing or face people quitting out of boredom.

Anet has a very poor track record when it comes to balance, so more skills is just going to overwhelm them. I think a better way would be to have a percentage of old skills expire with new skills to replace them on a regular schedule (say, every 4 months, or even 6 months). That way, the game stays fresh, but the number of useable skills doesn’t become overwhelming for Anet. This is what Magic the Gathering does to keep Type II play fresh.

The major problem with this is that people will have to change builds on a regular basis and people who are locked in because of Ascended gear will be very upset if their new build will require different gear.

(In fact this problem will arise no matter what Anet does as long as they introduce new skills — they’ve put themselves in a no-win situation here.)

Wait what? Op your suggesting we be disallowed from using skill points to purchase skills?? Isn’t that what skill points are for?

So what has changed that your complaining about the method now, with the new skills, and never complained about the system before?

coglin.1867:

Wait what? Op your suggesting we be disallowed from using skill points to purchase skills?? Isn’t that what skill points are for?

So what has changed that your complaining about the method now, with the new skills, and never complained about the system before?

I think its more about reaching an access point for purchasing the new skills and not just going to your nearest capital city and talking to a trainer as soon as the skills are implemented. At least, that’s why I joined the conversation.

coglin.1867:

Wait what? Op your suggesting we be disallowed from using skill points to purchase skills?? Isn’t that what skill points are for?

So what has changed that your complaining about the method now, with the new skills, and never complained about the system before?

No no, still use skillpoints. However, you can’t spend them on a skill till you do something in game. Not as the previous poster stated, just running to a trainer or in my and a lot of my friends position, just pushing 2 buttons. Thats not progression. Don’t get me wrong, its a good deal for new players and alts. However, lets be honest here; would you rather have more content that allows you to play your main longer/new things or would you rather have content that you need to be on an alt or a new player for it to feel like true progression.

This system would have been great if they gave us a constant stream of skills or reduced the ways we acquired skillpoints.

Umm…that’s pretty much what I said. We do agree on this, you and I.

After reading this thread it seems that the issue is more that PvE players are getting too many skill points from champion farming and not enough sinks to use them on. The simple solution would be a combination of reducing the number of scrolls of knowledge that drop and giving PvE players more skill point sinks. Crafters have skill point sinks (ascended gear), WvW players have skill point sinks (superior siege), PvE players don’t and now they seem to have an over abundance.

I would hate it if I had to take time out from WvW to do some corny skill challenge just to get a new skill. It’s bad enough we need to craft BiS gear ourselves and spend countless hours in PvE for Dragonite. Whatever happened to play how you want…

Sorry, but I do not want skills gated further. No matter how you say it, no matter how you dress it up, I think it is a bad idea.

If they’re actually going to do horizontal progression through skills, I’d rather see skills that require an unlock and a few skill points than just requiring 25+ skill points. A Liadri-like profession challenge to unlock an elite skill would be fun, but just imagine the whining.

zenleto.6179:

I wouldn’t say the acquisition is bad, just not exciting. It might be nice to do a series of events to unlock new skills, similar to personal story maybe (without the cut scenes), but I don’t know.

I’ll probably just buy any that look interesting with my massive bag of skill points and move on.

(edit for spelling)

There’s a reason why acquiring skills via quests got mostly tossed out the door with Factions. Because it was a terrible mechanic. I’m glad they didn’t bring that nonsense back.

chemiclord.3978:

zenleto.6179:

I wouldn’t say the acquisition is bad, just not exciting. It might be nice to do a series of events to unlock new skills, similar to personal story maybe (without the cut scenes), but I don’t know.

I’ll probably just buy any that look interesting with my massive bag of skill points and move on.

(edit for spelling)

There’s a reason why acquiring skills via quests got mostly tossed out the door with Factions. Because it was a terrible mechanic. I’m glad they didn’t bring that nonsense back.

I wouldn’t know since I didn’t play GW1. I can see how it could be done well or poorly, or even just done. Glad it’s not my job.

I don’t like the idea of needing to do some sidequest or another for a normal skill.

If its meant to be a special skill related to some sort of dungeon or update or something specifically, then questing for it is fine. But if its just supposed to be a regular old skill, just an additional option for normal play, then it should be unlocked the same way other skills are. Reach the requisite tier and buy it with skill points.

I hope its not 25 skill points like Antitoxin Spray, though. That was a bit ridiculous. New skills should be accessible to all players (and thus be a similar cost to all other skills), not reserved for the level 80 players who have accumulated an excess of skill points. If level 80 players need “skill point sinks” then add more items or whatever that use them (items that only level 80 players can use anyway), don’t add skills with huge costs as sinks at the expense of all the other players.

No, that’s a bad idea. I don’t wanna go hunting a champion for a normal skill. For elites, maybe. But definitely NOT normal skills.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Magi_Malaquire

Ah the memories.

Deified.7520:

Hey there!

So recently it was revealed that you’ll be getting new skills coming this time around. That’s great and all and I love that we’re seeing new skills. However, how you’re having us to acquire them is a bit bad. You use skill points to unlock them in PvE.

What do you think of this acquisition method? Is this suitable progression for you or would you rather have it another way? If so whats you’re idea.

I’ll give my personal opinion on the matter.

Personally I hate gathering and crafting. As a result, I never used my skill points on any of my characters. Combine with items that give you skill points, I have a TON. My main has something close to 300.

In my opinion, you need to have us do stuff in game if you want us to have skill progression. That is why gw1 had such an awesome skill progression. You didn’t just use skill points and boom. You actually had to hunt down a specific enemy who had specific strategies that you had to master for your class to take down. What you should have done is made it so we unlock it when we do a certain event in the open world. It could be class based. We would have to do this event which was tough to a certain degree (liadari of darkness tough would be awesome, though I think too many people didn’t like that. So a bit easier)

Progression needs to take time. Since there aren’t too many good skillpoint drains for none grinders/gatherers, I know a lot of people have a huge amount of skill points sitting around. They’ll probably buy the skill instantly and then go back to what they usual do with no change in the endgame progression for them.

Anyways thats my opinion on the matter.

i’ll pass on the creative ways to get skills in this game. players jump through enough hoops to get stuff so the skill point system is fine.

edit- the current system is streamlined and makes sense, so let’s not give them more ideas to force us into doing things we don’t want to do to “progress” our characters.

I think it would be more exciting if we unlocked skills by playing through part of the story (for example, “learnt” a skill from an NPC, similar to Belcher’s Bluff).

But if we’re simply using currency to unlock new skills, I’m just glad that it is via skill points and not gems, gold or whatever new collectible is introduced every two weeks.

I just hope the new skills don’t cost 25 skill points each. These ones look like alternate “standard heals” when compared to the Antitoxin Spray, which was extremely niche and used only in the Tower of Nightmares. Having to spend 25 skill points on what should be an alternative standard healing skill would be excessive.

Sube Dai.8496:

Hunting skills in gw1 was fun because there were so many to acquire. Gw2 by comparoson has hardly any skills, so the effort of finding them would not take very long. But they also just cant add more skills, because having so many skills made the game too hard to balance. You can’t have the best of both worlds.

I am not trying to be rude but I missed the part where PVE is balanced? I really wish they give up that silly notion that they will become a E-Sport’s game. That ship sailed and sunk like the titanic.

The game is extremely unbalanced and at this point the only way to fix it is to introduce two skill sets one for pve and one for pvp just like GW1 other wise. Skill balance is completely pointless.

Zaxares.5419:

I just hope the new skills don’t cost 25 skill points each. These ones look like alternate “standard heals” when compared to the Antitoxin Spray, which was extremely niche and used only in the Tower of Nightmares. Having to spend 25 skill points on what should be an alternative standard healing skill would be excessive.

I agree with that. But having 600+ Skillpoints on my main char I didn’t really mind much. Retrospective I wouldn’t buy the Spray and I didn’t on my other chars. Sofar some new healskills don’t seem worthwhile to spend SP on.

I’d rather have them focus more on balance than new skills. Changing things constantly is starting to become annoying.

Sube Dai.8496:

Hunting skills in gw1 was fun because there were so many to acquire. Gw2 by comparoson has hardly any skills, so the effort of finding them would not take very long. But they also just cant add more skills, because having so many skills made the game too hard to balance. You can’t have the best of both worlds.

Fun is the wrong description at least for Prophecies, more like tedious. Running a whole mission hoping you got the right boss to spawn and then having to repeat it again if it wasn’t. That was not fun at all.

Paul.4081:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Magi_Malaquire

Ah the memories.

xD Yeah that was pretty fun. Hunting down bosses all over the world and actually getting killed every once in a while. Actually was challenging. Bosses in this game are a joke. :P

465 skills per character. Skill trainers strewed across the lands. Stealing skills off bosses.

Want. Want. Want.

Anet: Go.

I agree with the OP. Would it kill Anet to put in a little effort and make a fun quest or storyline for these skills to unlock?

This just in Anet, not everything needs to be either freely given, farmed, or crafted. Pro tip for making MMOs for you.

Araris.7839:

I agree with the OP. Would it kill Anet to put in a little effort and make a fun quest or storyline for these skills to unlock?

This just in Anet, not everything needs to be either freely given, farmed, or crafted. Pro tip for making MMOs for you.

I’d prefer it they used their time and resources to making a robust and customizable profession system outside of adding new gear. Having a few more buttons to press that were devoted to making weapon sets feel complete and more skills at hand to use wouldn’t hurt either.

They don’t even need to do what I said. I’d be content with anything other than open up hero panel, push unlock on skill. That is sooo borrring.

I dont craft. Never liked it nor felt the need to. Never wanted to get my legendary. I don’t need skillpoint at all. I don’t think im the only one either. So assuming they release skills at a constant rate of 25skill points they would need to release 13 skills before I run out of skill points, and that is assuming I dont earn any in between the skills. I would love if I could use those skill points for something that benefits me even though I’m not a crafter.

I mean, most of the people in this thread defending keeping the skill system at its current rate; what do you do(PvE dungeons, PvE open world, etc)? What do you use your current skill points for? How many do you have?

I would much rather have a different thing to do in game aside from what is current an option to us. Lets assume that they keep on the same trend they are now. Living story arcs every 2 weeks, repopulating an old zone. Maybe a new zone if we’re lucky. Come back to this thread in one year and tell me if it was a bad idea to put in some way of getting skills instead of just buying them via the skillpoint menu. If it was a bad idea to give some more endgame content to the game.

It has little to do with the number of skill points available for any given player or exhausting them.

They could have new skills cost 1, 3, 6 or whatever for all I care. I just don’t want to go “skill” or “quest” hunting. It was a stupid mechanic in Prophecies; one that I’m glad they did away with, because it was silly and tedious for no reason.

So no, I don’t agree. Now what?

OMG actually having to use skill points on skills? I’m SHOCKED utterly SHOCKED!!!!

I wouldn’t want it yet, but this idea could do really well in whatever type of expansion they plan. Rather than inflating the level cap, require skills for the new 80+ expansions (for lack of a better term) to have some new methods of acquisition. That way there is still significant progressions to be made past 80 without making me buy 20 new sets of armor. New skills, quests, weapons, classes (and mounts?) blended within new “post 80” zones could greatly broaden horizontal progression.

I was gonna make a post here, but then I didn’t.

New skills are great! BUT why they have to be unlocked for PvP?! I guess really soon in the future, where it won’t be limited only to heal skills, we will all miss PvP only characters and GW1 :-/
It’s like a step back from e-sports. Imagine that you would have to unlock units in SC2 by playing XX of hours…seriously ?!

this is the debate anet had before the game came out. back then they had specific skills gotten from certain skill challenges. They said they decided to make em into skill points so that people didnt have to split up, and so every player could experience more content. IMO it was an error. Hunting skills, and having skill challenges be more specific to the skill enriches the world, and might have made leveling alts more exciting.
The introduction of new skills, only using only skillpoints is boring. Some people like it boring, they dont want to have to wait or do anything, but thats a big problem with the game. every event is the same reward, things are introduced with no context/connection to the world. Then people wonder why content feels so flat, and people ignore new events (back when they introduced modus scleri) Its because progression should be tied to gameplay and the world.

You should have to defeat a master swordsman you find in a hidden pirates cove to unlock a cool sword skill. Hunt a mythical beast to unlock a new ranger trap. Assassinate an evil official to unlock a new theif skill. All the while revealing greater background/lore in the game, and having cool events. This is an rpg. getting more skilled shouldnt just be about opening champion chests and buying skills from a menu.

Chlupac.4936:

New skills are great! BUT why they have to be unlocked for PvP?! I guess really soon in the future, where it won’t be limited only to heal skills, we will all miss PvP only characters and GW1 :-/
It’s like a step back from e-sports. Imagine that you would have to unlock units in SC2 by playing XX of hours…seriously ?!

in gw1, im pretty sure you had to unlock skills for pvp

phys.7689:

in gw1, im pretty sure you had to unlock skills for pvp

hmm, no ?
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Pvp_character
and that is what was so great about it :P

Instead they can use any of those things which is already unlocked on their account, whether those skills were unlocked through PvE play (on another character)

if you didnt already unlock them on your charachter you had to win matches to unlock them

Im sure if they made it hard to acquire this thread will be a whining thread. And people will say oh another grind….

Chlupac.4936:

phys.7689:

in gw1, im pretty sure you had to unlock skills for pvp

hmm, no ?
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Pvp_character
and that is what was so great about it :P

You did though.

You had some skills unlocked based on Profession when you created it, and whatever other skills that were unlocked on your account through other characters, but you still had to unlock skills (as well as upgrades) through playing and spending Faction Points (Balthazar Faction, if I remember rightly) or the store.

They weren’t all accessible from the start like it is in GW2.

I have to agree. Gaining skills in this game is pretty uninspired.

Maybe if skill points were used to unlock challenges that you had to complete to gain the skill, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Skill points are so abundant in this game now that having them feels absolutely redundant.

In total my characters are sitting on close to 1000 skill-points. Whatever are we going to spend them on?

Skill-points are just another meaningless currency in this game.

id rather have it on 10 skillpoints which a skill you can purchase from an npc walking randomly around on a set map

TheDaiBish.9735:

Chlupac.4936:

phys.7689:

in gw1, im pretty sure you had to unlock skills for pvp

hmm, no ?
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Pvp_character
and that is what was so great about it :P

You did though.

You had some skills unlocked based on Profession when you created it, and whatever other skills that were unlocked on your account through other characters, but you still had to unlock skills (as well as upgrades) through playing and spending Faction Points (Balthazar Faction, if I remember rightly) or the store.

They weren’t all accessible from the start like it is in GW2.

---

I have to agree. Gaining skills in this game is pretty uninspired.

Maybe if skill points were used to unlock challenges that you had to complete to gain the skill, it wouldn’t be so bad.

You had to unlock equipment and rune as well but all of it could be done through PvE play as well .

Dee Jay.2460:

Skill points are so abundant in this game now that having them feels absolutely redundant.

In total my characters are sitting on close to 1000 skill-points. Whatever are we going to spend them on?

Skill-points are just another meaningless currency in this game.

And how many hours ingame do you have ? 1000+ ?
You should not think only about “you”, but about other players aswell. For example – why should be a new player interested in SPvP only in disadvantage, because he don’t have skill points at all to unlock those new skills ? It’s just like a little step to the “classic mmo pvp”, where the time you spend ingame matters (e.g. better lvl, better armor, etc.).
It’s like a forcing new (but maybe really good!) footballer to play with a rock for some time…

to be fair skill points are literally a drop in this game

new people need to just read and learn how to play the game just like the rest of us did. if you don’t know how to get skillpoints easily, just ask, or look it up on the wiki.

skillpoints are easier to get than a level. neither of which are difficult to get because the game doesn’t need leveling to be a major part of the game just a small part to help you feel like your accomplishing something.

take all of those skillpoints and build some superior siege and post them on the TP
us WvW’rs could use some lower prices

It would be fun to have to earn new skills but I don’t see it happening. My main has 500 SP’s and I don’t even do champ farming.

Deified.7520:

They don’t even need to do what I said. I’d be content with anything other than open up hero panel, push unlock on skill. That is sooo borrring.

I dont craft. Never liked it nor felt the need to. Never wanted to get my legendary. I don’t need skillpoint at all. I don’t think im the only one either. So assuming they release skills at a constant rate of 25skill points they would need to release 13 skills before I run out of skill points, and that is assuming I dont earn any in between the skills. I would love if I could use those skill points for something that benefits me even though I’m not a crafter.

I mean, most of the people in this thread defending keeping the skill system at its current rate; what do you do(PvE dungeons, PvE open world, etc)? What do you use your current skill points for? How many do you have?

I would much rather have a different thing to do in game aside from what is current an option to us. Lets assume that they keep on the same trend they are now. Living story arcs every 2 weeks, repopulating an old zone. Maybe a new zone if we’re lucky. Come back to this thread in one year and tell me if it was a bad idea to put in some way of getting skills instead of just buying them via the skillpoint menu. If it was a bad idea to give some more endgame content to the game.

Antitoxin heal could be acquired without skill points. GG WP

I liked the anti toxin thing they had going on, maybe instead of it costing money it should have been based on if you did something with the living story.

It seems the biggest issue is there is no drain for skillpoints. Like so many things in this game, there is no drain. So people are just gathering an over abundance of them. Also said in this thread, it is currently very easy to gain skillpoints. The reason I said you should need to do something instead of just buying skills with skillpoints. It is not satisfying at all to do.

Again, those who are defending the current system. What do you play (pve,pvp,wvw,etc), how many skill points do you have, what are you currently using them for?

phys.7689:

Instead they can use any of those things which is already unlocked on their account, whether those skills were unlocked through PvE play (on another character)

if you didnt already unlock them on your charachter you had to win matches to unlock them

I think the point is that once unlocked they were permanently unlocked. Some people keep a single slot around that they reroll for each class instead having one of each class. If you have to unlock every time that becomes a problem.