Guild Wars 2

The GW1 skill system was incredibly flawed. It was so flawed that it effectivelly killed the game.

The combat system in GW2 is an improvement. Combat has been made more complex due to how positioning became more important, and how skills now have more effects connected to positioning – while GW1 had knock downs, GW2 has pulls, pushs, knock downs, and etc.

This makes combat not only more active, but also more reliable on player skill as opposed to character skills. It’s less likely we will reach a “Build Wars” state in GW2 than in GW1.

Besides, if the game lost Smiting damage, it has now Retaliation; rangers and mesmers can still interrupt (and there are some traits about interrupting enemies); boon removal and condition removal have replaced enchantment and hex removal, the latter something eternally imbalanced in GW1; and so on.

I also think the weapon skill is too boring. You are basically locked to the same set from the first levels of your character. Would be interesting to bring a system like the “Tales” series from Namco for weapon skills. So much more customization, but not overwhelming.

Erasculio.2914:

The GW1 skill system was incredibly flawed. It was so flawed that it effectivelly killed the game.

Really? I wonder why they haven’t shut it down yet then. Maybe because there’s still people playing it, despite GW2 being out?

Erasculio.2914:

The combat system in GW2 is an improvement. Combat has been made more complex due to how positioning became more important, and how skills now have more effects connected to positioning – while GW1 had knock downs, GW2 has pulls, pushs, knock downs, and etc.

No it’s not. Aside from dodging, positioning mattered just as much in GW, despite not having pulls.

Erasculio.2914:

This makes combat not only more active, but also more reliable on player skill as opposed to character skills. It’s less likely we will reach a “Build Wars” state in GW2 than in GW1.

Sure, until you know how to dodge. It’s not hard. Once you learn it, the whole system is pretty trivial and simplistic.

Besides, if the game lost Smiting damage, it has now Retaliation; rangers and mesmers can still interrupt (and there are some traits about interrupting enemies); boon removal and condition removal have replaced enchantment and hex removal, the latter something eternally imbalanced in GW1; and so on.

Guild Wars also had some retaliation type skills. Rangers and Mesmers have nowhere near the interrupt capacity they had in Guild Wars, and what does exist is fairly cumbersome. Boons and conditions in GW2 pale in comparison to what Guild Wars had in enchantments, hexes and conditions.

But the worst part of it is, they had all those good systems already designed in Guild Wars. They could have brought them over and made GW2 so much better. GW2 is clearly not about skill acquisition as a form of character progression, so why didn’t they just implement a lot more of the abilities they already created?

I’ll tell you why. Because the whole skill system in GW2 is rushed and half-baked. They spent so much time on everything else that they didn’t really have time to finish the skill system and combat. The lack of skill variety is only a small piece of that puzzle. Another really big piece is how nearly all skills lack some or all of a description as to what exactly they do. And then add to that the fact that all classes have only one or two elites that can be used underwater. And I’m sure other players could add a lot more to this.

Edit: Oh yeah, here’s a perfect example of a completely useless skill description.

Shield of the Avenger
Summon an arcane shield to defend you.

Duration: 20 s
Range: 600

I still cannot believe they put something that useless in the game. How does it defend me? What does it do? Why should I use it? When should I use it? Going to the Wiki, you can find this additional information:

- Spirit Weapons begin cooling down once they disappear.
- The shield follows behind the guardian and periodically generates a Shield of Absorption that absorbs projectiles. The shield generated does not push back.
- The shield will not begin generating the shield until a nearby ally is struck.

And even that is still less useful than what the tooltips had for skills in GW. Sad.

BRH CSULB Zombie.8421:

So game is built on GW1 engine. All those wonderfully unique and interesting skills aren’t in this version… whhaa!? consider this Anet. A warrior in gw1 has more than 200 unique WEAPON skills. an assassin also has more than 200 unique WEAPON skills. thats 400 descending skills for each slot.
You get 5 skills in GW2 with interesting combos from other weapons. 5 from greatsword. 3 from 1h sword, 2 more in the offhand. 3 from mace, etc. the combos are pretty cool… for awhile. but since the skills are LOCKED there isnt much room for variability.
To be fair lets take ONLY the first 5 slots from GW2 and apply the concept to GW1 using 400 factorial down to 396… the math is simple. 400X399X398X397X396 = 9986232009600 different possible combinations you could potentially have available to just 5 weapon slots. you read that correctly. nearly 10 trillion. Then stack the variation available with the concept of traits and major traits?
Coming from GW1 I was shocked, baffled, disappointed.
Please answer us as to why you took such a huge step in this direction. It was so much FUN creating and tinkering with different ideas.

What isnt fair of me is you said you wanted to take out the overlapping, bland, etc type skills. Well why not a compromise? Use the 1handed sword on a warrior for example. Number 1 is a chain with condition at the end. Add different “chains” that vary those conditions as possible skill slots. 2 is a gap closer, so why not vary the method with which you close? or sacrifice the closer for a ranged movement impairment. 3. the cripple. take it out for more damage? or a shorter version with a secondary condition applied.
Do we need 200 weapon skills? maybe not. I’d love to see it. but a healthy 3-5 for each slot in varying degrees?
Then come Elites. my gosh your signature ability for christ sake! what happened?

Your math is wrong, its not 400 factorial, more like combinations of 400 taken by 5

DocHolliday.5921:

Really? I wonder why they haven’t shut it down yet then. Maybe because there’s still people playing it, despite GW2 being out?

And why do you think they have stopped supporting it? Why no chapter 4, why was Utopia cancelled, and so on? The skill system in GW1 prevented ArenaNet from making the game grow anymore. Without the ability to grow, there was little more for GW1 other than withering and dying, as it has been doing.

DocHolliday.5921:

No it’s not. Aside from dodging, positioning mattered just as much in GW, despite not having pulls.

False. The fact the game allows people to cast skills on the move, the presence of pulls and pushs, the way projectiles work now, projectile reflection, having all abilities cast on allies being available only as area effects (instead of having people click on an ally’s health bar), and many other factors show how positioning is much more important than in GW1.

You appear to have the false belief that GW2 is GW1 sans hexes. That’s not how the game works. The entire combat system is considerably more position-based and (player) skill-based than in GW1.

DocHolliday.5921:

I agree with you for the most part. Except for having to be careful about using skills. Just a few examples… first, mesmer or ranger interrupt builds. Should be obvious. But second, you also had to be careful depending on what enemy hexes you had on you. And depending on what skills the enemies had, you had to be very careful when to use skills (for example, don’t use healing breeze if you know someone hkittenter enchantment off recharge). That’s just a few examples I thought of quickly. I’m sure if I were to go back and play GW again (which is seeming more and more likely of late) I’d find a lot more.

I did consider the interrupt Mesmer as a build that would have been heavy in skill-management, but I didn’t list them because while I didn’t play one in GW1 I do play a CC Engineer who does much the same thing—screws the enemy’s flow of battle up, and if I burn through them at the wrong time I am as naked as a newborn baby.

Confusion is effectively our punishment-hex replacement, and it is more simple but requires the same behavioral management Empathy and like skills did, and we do have some abilities like reflective skills that target very specific skill types (projectiles) and force you to move or switch things up. We don’t have quite as many, probably because a lot of mechanics are classified as something very specific and would mostly only screw over one profession, but they’re there.

Erasculio.2914:

DocHolliday.5921:

Really? I wonder why they haven’t shut it down yet then. Maybe because there’s still people playing it, despite GW2 being out?

And why do you think they have stopped supporting it? Why no chapter 4, why was Utopia cancelled, and so on? The skill system in GW1 prevented ArenaNet from making the game grow anymore. Without the ability to grow, there was little more for GW1 other than withering and dying, as it has been doing.

Why they stopped supporting it is no mystery. They explained that way back when they first announced GW2. And that was because Guild Wars just couldn’t handle all the new stuff they wanted to put into it. Had nothing to do with the skill system being flawed. Based on what we got with GW2, the most likely new thing they couldn’t properly implement in GW was dynamic events. But please, if you have insider information that states otherwise, please post it. Otherwise quit spreading misinformation.

DocHolliday.5921:

DocHolliday.5921:

No it’s not. Aside from dodging, positioning mattered just as much in GW, despite not having pulls.

False. The fact the game allows people to cast skills on the move, the presence of pulls and pushs, the way projectiles work now, projectile reflection, having all abilities cast on allies being available only as area effects (instead of having people click on an ally’s health bar), and many other factors show how positioning is much more important than in GW1.

That makes it slightly different, not more important. Having to stop to cast your skills makes your positioning when you start casting them extremely important.

Erasculio.2914:

You appear to have the false belief that GW2 is GW1 sans hexes. That’s not how the game works. The entire combat system is considerably more position-based and (player) skill-based than in GW1.

Really? That’s how you interpret what I posted? How sad.

Guild Wars was mostly about how you did things. Guild Wars 2 is mostly about what things you do. And that’s why the whole skill system in GW2 isn’t nearly as dynamic and robust as the one in Guild Wars.

DocHolliday.5921:

And that was because Guild Wars just couldn’t handle all the new stuff they wanted to put into it. Had nothing to do with the skill system being flawed.

Queensdale – the current Queensdale, dynamic events and persistent world and all – was originally built in GW1. So try again.

Erasculio.2914:

DocHolliday.5921:

And that was because Guild Wars just couldn’t handle all the new stuff they wanted to put into it. Had nothing to do with the skill system being flawed.

Queensdale – the current Queensdale, dynamic events and persistent world and all – was originally built in GW1. So try again.

So where’s your link to that information? And even if that’s true, it still offers no support whatsoever for your claims that the skill system in GW was flawed, nevermind so flawed they couldn’t continue to support it.

dimgl.4786:

Vayne.8563:

Because GW 1 was very well balanced. It was so easy to balance all those skills. What you might not be realizing is that GW 1 was a nightmare for some people, because of the number of skills. People didn’t know how to make builds. A lot of people tried the game, failed heavily and went on to different games. Anet doesn’t want that to happen again.

Now people are forced to take a self-heal. They’re forced to have at least some skills that work together. Sure it doesn’t suit you, personally. Doesn’t particularly suit me either. But that doesn’t mean it’s not better from a design point of view, or better for the game.

The combination of the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 and the second profession mechanic made the game virtually impossible to balance. It screwed with PvP and PVe became so easy it was meaningless, down to the point where you could use a Rit to solo farm ectos in the underworld.

I too miss the skill selection from Guild Wars 1, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for not having it in Guild Wars 2.

Omg! A game that makes players think?! SAY IT AIN’T SO!

I love games that make you think. I also recognize that the kind of game Guild Wars 2 was going to be depends on traffic and, unfortunately, if you make people think, you’ll seriously limit the number of people playing the game. Guild Wars 1 had 20% of the staff of Guild Wars 2. This is a much bigger project and has to appeal to a much wider audience.

WoW doesn’t make anyone think and has a zillion players. Guild Wars 1 did make people think and had far less (though many just as devoted). I’m a Guild Wars 1 fan and loved the game.

But I’m also aware that a game that aims to be mainstream can’t make people think too much, because there are fewer smart people than average people (pretty much by definition lol).

The math is incorrect, the skills cannot be used more than once, and they do not rely on order. Your “simple” math is, well a simple way to actually calculate the possible options.

The correct possible amount of combinations on your example is actually 83,218,600,080

If anyone is familiar with this, it’s called a permutation.

Vayne.8563:

dimgl.4786:

Vayne.8563:

Because GW 1 was very well balanced. It was so easy to balance all those skills. What you might not be realizing is that GW 1 was a nightmare for some people, because of the number of skills. People didn’t know how to make builds. A lot of people tried the game, failed heavily and went on to different games. Anet doesn’t want that to happen again.

Now people are forced to take a self-heal. They’re forced to have at least some skills that work together. Sure it doesn’t suit you, personally. Doesn’t particularly suit me either. But that doesn’t mean it’s not better from a design point of view, or better for the game.

The combination of the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 and the second profession mechanic made the game virtually impossible to balance. It screwed with PvP and PVe became so easy it was meaningless, down to the point where you could use a Rit to solo farm ectos in the underworld.

I too miss the skill selection from Guild Wars 1, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for not having it in Guild Wars 2.

Omg! A game that makes players think?! SAY IT AIN’T SO!

I love games that make you think. I also recognize that the kind of game Guild Wars 2 was going to be depends on traffic and, unfortunately, if you make people think, you’ll seriously limit the number of people playing the game. Guild Wars 1 had 20% of the staff of Guild Wars 2. This is a much bigger project and has to appeal to a much wider audience.

WoW doesn’t make anyone think and has a zillion players. Guild Wars 1 did make people think and had far less (though many just as devoted). I’m a Guild Wars 1 fan and loved the game.

But I’m also aware that a game that aims to be mainstream can’t make people think too much, because there are fewer smart people than average people (pretty much by definition lol).

All true, but it doesn’t make it any less disappointing. And I’m not so sure that in the end this will prove more successful, simply because of the vast glut of games already available for those players who don’t like to think too much. Sometimes you can actually be more successful filling a particular niche where there’s no real competition – that’s what a real successor to Guild Wars would have done. But even if they didn’t want to risk that, there’s still ways to do some compromises, even with the current system, which they chose not to do.

Honestly, the more I play GW2, the more I miss GW and the more I feel like maybe I should just ditch GW2 and go back to GW. If my account hadn’t got hacked 3 years ago I already would have. As it is, I just never had the heart to start over with getting my obsidian and other nice elite gear sets. But the way GW2 is going, that might change.

Sigh…. I miss second professions. You could make some really crazy builds on GW1 and tweaking builds would entertain me for hours. Now, when I hit 80 on my character I am so sick and tired of the skills I’m using and just end up rolling another class.

GW1 wasn’t that difficult to make a build, especially with PVXwiki or whatever it was, where you could download builds off a website, and then have fun tweaking those.

I think the OP has a good idea, having a few more choices on the weapon we are using would be awsome and would make your playing style more unique again. Come on, we’re not simpletons, unable to read what more than 5 skills do on a bar and never ever be able to use them effectively. Give us some credit :P

Sphinx Jinx.2713:

Sigh…. I miss second professions. You could make some really crazy builds on GW1 and tweaking builds would entertain me for hours. Now, when I hit 80 on my character I am so sick and tired of the skills I’m using and just end up rolling another class.

GW1 wasn’t that difficult to make a build, especially with PVXwiki or whatever it was, where you could download builds off a website, and then have fun tweaking those.

I think the OP has a good idea, having a few more choices on the weapon we are using would be awsome and would make your playing style more unique again. Come on, we’re not simpletons, unable to read what more than 5 skills do on a bar and never ever be able to use them effectively. Give us some credit :P

Agreed, 100%.

BRH CSULB Zombie.8421:

So game is built on GW1 engine.

Do you even know what “engine” means?

From wikipedia:
“The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, and a scene graph.”

The engine has almost nothing to do with what skills they put in the game or how the UI is layed out or how many skills they give you access to.

The way skills work in GW2 as opposed to GW1 is entirely a design choice. As many people in this thread have already stated, and (although I don’t have a link or direct quote on hand) as even ANet themselves have stated, while GW1 had a monstrous number of POSSIBLE builds, it had a very low number of VIABLE builds. In GW1, if you weren’t using one of handful of builds, you were seriously gimping yourself.

ANet’s goal with GW2 was to make sure that there were a wide variety of builds that were viable. You can argue all you want about whether this is true or not. And, I would guess that ANet would admit that there are not as many viable builds as they were hoping for. But, I think there are more viable builds than there was in GW1 and I’m sure ANet is actively working on the problem of making more builds viable.

Furthermore, while ANet has not confirmed this for us, I find it highly likely that they will come out with more traits, weapons, and utility skills for the current professions as time goes one. I would expect that these sorts of changes would come in an expansion and the game is less than 6 months old.

Look, I can appreciate the desire to tweak and fiddle and play with skills, but the truth is that you are very unlikely to “discover” a build that’s better than the well established builds already outlined for GW1 unless there’s a sudden balance change. Your build will be underpowered, and you will have a lot of trouble finding people to play with if you do not conform to what they expect your class to accomplish.
In GW1, most of the skills are only slightly better than popping a Moa Tonic.

I’m just glad I can play whatever class I want, with whatever build I want, and people aren’t hounding me because I’m not “playing the class right”. No one has kicked me out of a party because I played a Thief with dual pistols instead of dual daggers, or that I really like traps over steroid-buffs.

Vayne.8563:

The combination of the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 and the second profession mechanic made the game virtually impossible to balance. It screwed with PvP and PVe became so easy it was meaningless, down to the point where you could use a Rit to solo farm ectos in the underworld.

I too miss the skill selection from Guild Wars 1, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for not having it in Guild Wars 2.

Agreed. The sign of a competent developers are ones that can look at their past and rather than just copying what they did, actually taking an honest look at it and trying to figure out how to fix the flaws.

GW1 required research to know what to do or else you could easily make an unplayable character. Some people like that in a game but it also drives other people away. Instead ArenaNet chose a streamlined system that would be appealing to more than just the hardcores.

Also as Shufflepants stated, ArenaNet has said that while thousands of combinations were possible, their data showed players ended up using the same skills over and over (Thousand Blades for example). ArenaNet would have seen the exact same thing if they copied GW1’s system into GW2 only in that case they would have known from their past that making all those skills was a waste of resources (and known they would be wasting even more resources in the future by making their job that much harder in balancing)

DocHolliday.5921:

I still cannot believe they put something that useless in the game. How does it defend me? What does it do? Why should I use it? When should I use it? Going to the Wiki, you can find this additional information:
.

This is the exact same problem in GW1. ArenaNet has never had good communication about their mechanics or how to use them. It was the community who always provide the best information for me when I returned to GW1. I learned fairly quickly that the official wiki was okay for quick reference as long as you avoided the mind-numbing details but if you wanted to find anything useful for when you were actually playing, you needed to go to the forums.

The difference in GW2 is that even if you don’t know all the details of using skills, your character is still functional. You can still play the game. In GW1, if you didn’t know the the right details of certain skills/builds/whatever, you could end up with an unplayable experience.

The GW2 skill system is not terrible, but I do not find it to be engaging, either. Utilities usually end up with the same things in them, with some situational variety. Who doesn’t use invulnerability, stun break or condition removal more often than not? Some utility skills are significantly under-utilized.

Then there’s the waste of bar space that is a majority of the elite skills in some of the classes. With some notable exceptions, players would be better off having a fourth utility slot than having to choose which of their elites stinks least.

Once you pick your weapon(s), you’re locked into the slot 1-5 skills. Some classes have way better choices than others with regard to weapon skills. Most weapons have only a couple of skills that ought to be spammed (when not on CD). Some weapons have multiple situational options (daze, cripple, condition transfer, immobilize, etc.), leaving the user with the auto-attack and whatever damage skill is off CD.

For me, at least, the GW2 skill system lacks depth. People make the point that a lot of GW1 skills were hardly ever used, and this is certainly true. However, a lot of GW2 skills are hardly ever used, either, and there are a lot fewer of them to start with.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The GW2 skill system is not terrible, but I do not find it to be engaging, either. Utilities usually end up with the same things in them, with some situational variety. Who doesn’t use invulnerability, stun break or condition removal more often than not? Some utility skills are significantly under-utilized.

Then there’s the waste of bar space that is a majority of the elite skills in some of the classes. With some notable exceptions, players would be better off having a fourth utility slot than having to choose which of their elites stinks least.

Once you pick your weapon(s), you’re locked into the slot 1-5 skills. Some classes have way better choices than others with regard to weapon skills. Most weapons have only a couple of skills that ought to be spammed (when not on CD). Some weapons have multiple situational options (daze, cripple, condition transfer, immobilize, etc.), leaving the user with the auto-attack and whatever damage skill is off CD.

For me, at least, the GW2 skill system lacks depth. People make the point that a lot of GW1 skills were hardly ever used, and this is certainly true. However, a lot of GW2 skills are hardly ever used, either, and there are a lot fewer of them to start with.

I just wish more people were capable of understanding this.

The only thing that connect gw1 and gw2 is the story. Other than that, forget comparison. It’s really as simple as that.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

Also as Shufflepants stated, ArenaNet has said that while thousands of combinations were possible, their data showed players ended up using the same skills over and over (Thousand Blades for example). ArenaNet would have seen the exact same thing if they copied GW1’s system into GW2 only in that case they would have known from their past that making all those skills was a waste of resources (and known they would be wasting even more resources in the future by making their job that much harder in balancing)

So essentially, because some people lacked the capability to put together builds of their own they decided to take that option away from everyone? That sounds like a great solution. /sarcasm

DocHolliday.5921:

DocHolliday.5921:

I still cannot believe they put something that useless in the game. How does it defend me? What does it do? Why should I use it? When should I use it? Going to the Wiki, you can find this additional information:
.

This is the exact same problem in GW1. ArenaNet has never had good communication about their mechanics or how to use them. It was the community who always provide the best information for me when I returned to GW1. I learned fairly quickly that the official wiki was okay for quick reference as long as you avoided the mind-numbing details but if you wanted to find anything useful for when you were actually playing, you needed to go to the forums.

The difference in GW2 is that even if you don’t know all the details of using skills, your character is still functional. You can still play the game. In GW1, if you didn’t know the the right details of certain skills/builds/whatever, you could end up with an unplayable experience.

Seriously? Good god man, did you even play the first Guild Wars? ALL the skill descriptions were miles better than anything in GW2. How to explain how much of a joke the skill descriptions are in GW2 compared to GW? Words fail me.

Syeria.4812:

The original Guild Wars did have a ton of skills, and I liked the way it worked for that game. However, it’s not like there was some tremendous amount of build variety. I mean, look at the options on GW PvX for “Great” rated general builds. There’s only 33 of them in total, and 12 of those are full team builds. Paragon, Assassin, Monk, and Ritualist only have one build each.

Yes, additional build variety in GW2 would be great, but that should be done through trait/skill balance at this point, and not an increase in skills. Down the road there will probably be more skills added, but now’s not the time.

There are alot more builds out there, but they never get posted on that website. And believe me, the builds that some guilds use, are way better than those from that website. That website just learns you some basics of certain runs. Also it’s totally not up-to-date.

When they announced that they would have fewer skills to improve balance I was on board with it, PvP in GW1 was great but there were ‘cookie-cutter’ builds that would get run all the time and quite often were irritating/boring to play against.

Unfortunately the balance in this game is really bad too, classes such as the engineer, ranger and necromancer have been begging for months for some buffs and over the last 3 months they haven’t gotten squat. It really is quite pathetic, instead of throwing in all this new pve content that is shallow and poorly done, I would rather they would focus on making the combat more fun and immersive. Why they haven’t touched bunkers for months is absolutely ridiculous.

If they were going to balance the game like this I would have definitely preferred the GW1 skill system. Everything was much more unpredictable and interesting, instead of memorizing the same bar and using it more efficiently you would learn several builds and counters. There would be occasional build wars when your build was hard countered but most of the time the winner would be the players/team that adapted their strategy quickest to what the enemy was doing.

That was just PvP, in GW1 PvE the enemies used the same skills as players, kited out of AoE and were just much, much smarter. Once heroes came out the game became a cakewalk but early in the days of prophecies there were challenging areas/missions (Thirsty river, Thunderhead Keep, Abbadon’s mouth etc). I have never failed a personal story, ever. The only times I had to restart a mission were in the first month whenever I encountered a glitch.

This game definitely needs more variety (either by adding more skills, changing existing skills to be more interesting/varied or redoing traits to actually change your playstyle rather than just create bigger numbers). Not all of this post is specifically on topic but I’ve just been so frustrated by the way Anet have (mis)managed the game from release, this could have been an absolutely amazing game that changed the mmorpg genre but as it is, it’s a merely above average game with a handful of nice features that we may see in future mmo’s.

CoRtex.2157:

Syeria.4812:

The original Guild Wars did have a ton of skills, and I liked the way it worked for that game. However, it’s not like there was some tremendous amount of build variety. I mean, look at the options on GW PvX for “Great” rated general builds. There’s only 33 of them in total, and 12 of those are full team builds. Paragon, Assassin, Monk, and Ritualist only have one build each.

Yes, additional build variety in GW2 would be great, but that should be done through trait/skill balance at this point, and not an increase in skills. Down the road there will probably be more skills added, but now’s not the time.

There are alot more builds out there, but they never get posted on that website. And believe me, the builds that some guilds use, are way better than those from that website. That website just learns you some basics of certain runs. Also it’s totally not up-to-date.

Yes. This, exactly.

Afyael.1740:

When they announced that they would have fewer skills to improve balance I was on board with it, PvP in GW1 was great but there were ‘cookie-cutter’ builds that would get run all the time and quite often were irritating/boring to play against.

Unfortunately the balance in this game is really bad too, classes such as the engineer, ranger and necromancer have been begging for months for some buffs and over the last 3 months they haven’t gotten squat. It really is quite pathetic, instead of throwing in all this new pve content that is shallow and poorly done, I would rather they would focus on making the combat more fun and immersive. Why they haven’t touched bunkers for months is absolutely ridiculous.

If they were going to balance the game like this I would have definitely preferred the GW1 skill system. Everything was much more unpredictable and interesting, instead of memorizing the same bar and using it more efficiently you would learn several builds and counters. There would be occasional build wars when your build was hard countered but most of the time the winner would be the players/team that adapted their strategy quickest to what the enemy was doing.

That was just PvP, in GW1 PvE the enemies used the same skills as players, kited out of AoE and were just much, much smarter. Once heroes came out the game became a cakewalk but early in the days of prophecies there were challenging areas/missions (Thirsty river, Thunderhead Keep, Abbadon’s mouth etc). I have never failed a personal story, ever. The only times I had to restart a mission were in the first month whenever I encountered a glitch.

This game definitely needs more variety (either by adding more skills, changing existing skills to be more interesting/varied or redoing traits to actually change your playstyle rather than just create bigger numbers). Not all of this post is specifically on topic but I’ve just been so frustrated by the way Anet have (mis)managed the game from release, this could have been an absolutely amazing game that changed the mmorpg genre but as it is, it’s a merely above average game with a handful of nice features that we may see in future mmo’s.

Thank you for taking the time to post that. Very well stated and exactly how I feel as well.

Raine.1394:

There is a general trend in gaming to remove complexity in terms of build customization. WoW is much simpler than it was pre-cata, D3 looks more like GW2 than it does D2. I’m sure they want to save themselves the hassle of balance and want to make games more accessible to more people through implementing “training wheels”. The problem, of course, is that the training wheels aren’t removable; you are never allowed to grow up in today’s game. The richness in character customization is gone and many people miss it. Perhaps there is a happy medium somewhere that solves balance and accessibility and still allows for depth of customization.

This. And it makes me sad.
It really seems that mmo devs nowadays completely forgot that the majority of their playerbase already know how to play a MMO. Is already used to complex schemes, complex strategies, etc. And that is what they need to keep being interested. It’s like a chest player : would you really think that someone who has been playing chess 4 hours a day for 8 years would keep being entertained with beginner playstyle … ?

We don’t need those training wheels anymore, except the usual casual, vocal minority at release, who complain at the slightest thing just because there was some need to think a bit about it. And this vocal minority will abandon the game a month later anyway for “that other next big thing”.
I really don’t get why they don’t understand where their real sustainable playerbase is : hardcore, dedicated, & often veteran mmo players. Those are the ones who will dedicate hours, weeks, monthes to a MMO, even when it has lost its novelty.
Those people don’t need hand holding, at all. They just need the exact opposite.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

Also as Shufflepants stated, ArenaNet has said that while thousands of combinations were possible, their data showed players ended up using the same skills over and over (Thousand Blades for example).

I’m not pointing at ANet here, but in general as this seems to be the trend in mmo devs to oversimplify (or even remove) choices just “because players are all taking the same single option anyway”. That is a lazy & unprofessional philosophy to remove content “just because it’s not used enough”. If it’s not used, it means it’s not well designed. So instead of removing it and say “voilà, problem solved”, it should be reworked. I’m really having a hard time accepting this design philosophy (which appeared with Blizzard, some years ago, let’s face it).

Honestly, everything about the Guild Wars philosophy and how they approach the MMO genre is really exciting. However, it was odd that they chose the weapon skill system. It’s hard for me to want to continue to play when I have the same 5 skills from 1-80 since of course it will get old. It’s also odd since a lot of MMO’s offer customization in this respect and wasn’t something that needed to be changed.

Apparently even though this game was marketed towards people who like to think its now being pushed in the grindwars direction. Its a fact sadly that sucks.

Vayne.8563:

Because GW 1 was very well balanced. It was so easy to balance all those skills. What you might not be realizing is that GW 1 was a nightmare for some people, because of the number of skills. People didn’t know how to make builds. A lot of people tried the game, failed heavily and went on to different games. Anet doesn’t want that to happen again.

Now people are forced to take a self-heal. They’re forced to have at least some skills that work together. Sure it doesn’t suit you, personally. Doesn’t particularly suit me either. But that doesn’t mean it’s not better from a design point of view, or better for the game.

The combination of the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 and the second profession mechanic made the game virtually impossible to balance. It screwed with PvP and PVe became so easy it was meaningless, down to the point where you could use a Rit to solo farm ectos in the underworld.

I too miss the skill selection from Guild Wars 1, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for not having it in Guild Wars 2.

Warms my heart to see someone else provide the answer I would have given.

Yes, ANet has simplified things in order to make balance more manageable.

For all of you whose enthusiasm as been dampened by this, I assure you, when GW2’s spectator mode shows up, and we start getting to watch epic tournament sPvP games, it’ll all be worth it.

And as the game becomes more balanced and allows them more wiggle-room, I’m sure ANet will swap boring traits with interesting ones and maybe add new ones to give the game more flavor.
Along with the inevitable increase in new weapons and skills. :P

This thread is 3-month old, but I want to add my opinion and sorry for my eventually bad english :P.

Actually GW2 skill mechanic involves:
1) Weapon, utility and elite skills
2) Boons, conditions and combos
3) Minor and major traits
4) Runes
5) Sigils

You can combine all this 5 things and make your own build! And this is wonderful because every single combo DO affect everything else.
Let’s say, for exemple, a Mesmer can remove conditions in this way:
1) Utility: Mantra of Resolve (4 conds/20 sec)
2) Utility: Null Field (all conds/45 sec)
3) Trait: Mender’s Purity (1 cond/CD depends on healing skill)
4) Combo: light fields + projectile finishers (1 cond/CD depends on field & finisher skills)
5) Sigil of Purity (1 cond/60% chance with every weap skills)

So, when you are building a Mesmer, how do you face the remove condition problem? Null Field maybe? So, let’s say you like other glamour utilies, then probabily you’ll go for a glamour build.
Too much cooldown, do you want something “faster”? Then Mantra of Resolve could be a good choice and other traits can add less cooldown, adding the healing effect on casting, etc… etc… and so on.

When I began to play the Mesmer, it has been said to me that the Staff is more supportive and the greatsword is more offensive. Well… not really, it’s a yes and no. With my build now I’m able to deal 10K dmg on a boss with Phantasmal Worlock… and I don’t think you can consider “10K dmg” “supportive”.

I mean, possibilities are a lot and you can play with all this combinations into 2 ways:
1) changing/learning a new playstyle that match the char role (a healing-mantra mesmer plays differently from a shatter-based mesmer)
2) make your char to match your own playstyle (been a shatter-based mesmer BUT using Mantra to remove conditions and heal nearby allies).

ANet give us the chance to change our build (by spending 3-ish silvers), just because experimenting is the key. Are you bored your char does only boom-boom-boom? Than try boom-boom-yeah or boom-yeah-boom or boom-boom-chah!

What I learned playing Mesmer, it’s just “experimenting”… also in playstyle: every one knows that even though clones make your opponent a bit dizzy, the real mesmer is 1) stealthed or 2) the farest one. But I noticed that if you don’t move and you stand among your clones and just spamming the 1 basic weapon skill, your opponent would think you are a clone and they jump on the farest one. My motto is: “Pretend to be a clone!”… and it works! Expecially against thieves… mwahahaha XD, than Mirror Images → Distortion → 5° GS skill → Blink (if you don’t want to engage a battle).

I think that bored people didn’t understand the game very well, no offence.

I used 8 skills on my GW1 character. I use 10 skills on my GW2 character (sometimes more when I need to switch skills to fit the situation). GW2 is better.

I’d like to point out that there are many more skills in GW2 than there were in GW1. Many of them are bound to weapon sets, yes, but those should still count.
There’s an achievement track called “Skillful” in the “Hero” category. It requires you to learn 1,000 skills. I’m at 807, I think.
And I don’t believe that counts skills on environmental weapons.

Isn’t that skill points? =)

Both games have their pro’s and con’s when it comes to skills and build varieties.

Yes, GW1 had a heck of a lot more skills, but a lot of them didn’t get used and it wasn’t always balanced. The still do small skill tweaks on GW1 8 years later, though admittedly not as heavily as they once did.

GW2 drastically reduced the skill selection by tying the skills to the weapon being used. A little restrictive, sure, but at least it makes using a wand or a staff (or a sword on a caster) viable now. In GW1, a caster equipped a sword for stats and looks only, we couldn’t attack worth a kitten with it (Wooo 3 dmg! Oh look a 5!). Staves and wands…remember “if you’re wanding it, you’re not doing kitten for damage”? They have effectively eliminated this issue….hooray!

I think if we had a few more weapon options, or maybe a second selected set of skills for existing weapons, it might make things a little more interesting.

We could also use the return of skills like backfire, spiteful spirit, empathy, and even wastrels as they were from GW1. I agree with the comment that the condition damage and lack of true hex damage makes combat less interesting. I loved my GW1 mesmer and necro; the built in ability to control my opponent was great. We don’t really have as much of that in GW2. Sure I can bleed my foe, I can even cripple him and dodge out of the way, but wheres my ability to punish him for fighting….for not fighting….for using a speed buff? Variation is the spice to life.

I’m not saying that we need the hundreds and hundreds of skills from GW1, but we could use say…25% to 50% more than what we got. Maybe that will come in time, I don’t know. For now, I’ll be patient and see.

Guys, guys.

GW2 does not need as many skills as GW1 has. However, it does need more skills than it has currently. I would argue that each weapon should have 8 skills (not counting the #1) that can be mapped around, and there should be a lot more weapon types.

There should also be 2 additional tiers of utility skills and a few additional healing and elite skills.

That would be sufficient variety I believe. GW1 was a balancing nightmare and skill types were very restrictive despite the number of skills available.

So what I’m getting from the counter argument is humanity just isn’t intelligent enough to handle GW1’s in-depth skill system… /sigh. Why couldn’t we of evolved from dolphins or something?

It would be nice to be able to remove the skills useless to my build on Thief and replace it with one that’s actually useful to it.

Doggie.3184:

So what I’m getting from the counter argument is humanity just isn’t intelligent enough to handle GW1’s in-depth skill system… /sigh. Why couldn’t we of evolved from dolphins or something?

It would be nice to be able to remove the skills useless to my build on Thief and replace it with one that’s actually useful to it.

I don’t think the main argument is that people aren’t intelligent enough (although many probably aren’t, which is why we have things like PvX, but I digress), more the issue with balance with that many skills. And, even with hundreds of skills, only a handful were ever truly used, so 80+% of them sat there as a waste.

I think we need to find a happy medium between GW1 and GW2 skills.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Isn’t that skill points? =)

Oh. Well, that could be. I don’t actually know; I’ve just been watching my progress go up as I unlock more skills. I guess I’ll have to pay attention…

As I wrote my original post, I was thinking of a remark made by one of the developers about how many skills (I don’t remember the exact number, but it was more than just “hundreds”) there are in GW2. That same developer remarked that the reason most folks don’t see so many skills is that they’re spread throughout the different professions and the game world, largely on environmental weapons and such.

I don’t know about anyone else here, but when I want more skills, I just whip out a consumable weapon. Whether it’s my trusty Hylek Blowgun, a Golem-in-a-Box, or an experimental laser gun (a personal favorite), I’m always equipped for those unusual cases in which my normal skill set just doesn’t seem sufficient.

BRH CSULB Zombie.8421:

So game is built on GW1 engine.

That’s where you went wrong. No it isn’t.

I suspect that there are MUCH more viable builds in gw2 than in gw1. I know just for warrior, a mace mace build is AMAZING for when your in a party. but who uses mace mace build? me. I don’t know ANYONE who runs mace mace. im sure there are plenty of other builds too just for warrior that no one has discovered yet. so id suggest leveling every class to 80 and then testing it for like a month for each profession, trying to make a new build every week. THEN complain about not having enough viable builds, for some classes im sure this is an issue, but your example of total skills for classes in gw1 is flawed because in all honesty how many of those build were viable? and of those viable builds, how many were universally viable? and how many of the universally viable builds didn’t have to get balanced so they were no longer SUPER Overpowered? that narrows it down quite a bit.

Is it 2010 again? We’ve all known about the skill set up since what? 2 years before launch? Something like that.

I love the way gw2 did skills. It’s like a moddable League of legends where you can change your loadout for different play styles.

Having limitless choice often is no choice at all.

Let me say something, it seems that people think that if you have more skills, only the strongest set of them will be used. Well.. that’s mostly the case. But what you are forgetting is that that only counts for 1 part on the map. What having more skills is about is that you can adapt your build to your environment. With the current system it doesn’t matter where you are, you will always use the same skills. maybe change 1 or 2 skills for a certain dungeon, but that’s it. It doesn’t make the game verry dynamic, it makes it boring & grindy. That’s also why i never felt like grinding in GW1. It was called farming, and was kitten fun with all those builds.

CoRtex.2157:

Let me say something, it seems that people think that if you have more skills, only the strongest set of them will be used. Well.. that’s mostly the case. But what you are forgetting is that that only counts for 1 part on the map. What having more skills is about is that you can adapt your build to your environment. With the current system it doesn’t matter where you are, you will always use the same skills. maybe change 1 or 2 skills for a certain dungeon, but that’s it. It doesn’t make the game verry dynamic, it makes it boring & grindy. That’s also why i never felt like grinding in GW1. It was called farming, and was kitten fun with all those builds.

This can’t be father away from how I find it plays personally. With my Elementalist I find I use every weapon option in a lot of dungeons for different parts.

eg. When I’m doing a AC run of all paths I’ll swap around a lot.
Sceptre/Focus for Spider boss,
D/D for Gravelings
Swap in Ice Bow for burrow killing, maybe also Fiery Greatsword,
Swap in Mistform, Arcane Shield, Earthshield and D/D for running the parts
for Path 1 boss Sceptre/Focus.
Path 2 boss Staff
Path 3 boss Sceptre/Focus.

So in that dungeon I’m running around 70 different skills.

Even with Guardian, I’ll generally run GS/Staff/Sceptre/Shield/Focus/Mace at different parts. I have a much wider selection of Utilities in AC than my Elementalist. Even though I’m boon specced there are places Wall of Reflection, different Shouts, Shield of Avenger, Consecrations to remove conditions all get used. I reacon that over all 3 paths I’ll run around 30 different skills.

Vayne.8563:

dimgl.4786:

Vayne.8563:

Because GW 1 was very well balanced. It was so easy to balance all those skills. What you might not be realizing is that GW 1 was a nightmare for some people, because of the number of skills. People didn’t know how to make builds. A lot of people tried the game, failed heavily and went on to different games. Anet doesn’t want that to happen again.

Now people are forced to take a self-heal. They’re forced to have at least some skills that work together. Sure it doesn’t suit you, personally. Doesn’t particularly suit me either. But that doesn’t mean it’s not better from a design point of view, or better for the game.

The combination of the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 and the second profession mechanic made the game virtually impossible to balance. It screwed with PvP and PVe became so easy it was meaningless, down to the point where you could use a Rit to solo farm ectos in the underworld.

I too miss the skill selection from Guild Wars 1, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for not having it in Guild Wars 2.

Omg! A game that makes players think?! SAY IT AIN’T SO!

I love games that make you think. I also recognize that the kind of game Guild Wars 2 was going to be depends on traffic and, unfortunately, if you make people think, you’ll seriously limit the number of people playing the game. Guild Wars 1 had 20% of the staff of Guild Wars 2. This is a much bigger project and has to appeal to a much wider audience.

WoW doesn’t make anyone think and has a zillion players. Guild Wars 1 did make people think and had far less (though many just as devoted). I’m a Guild Wars 1 fan and loved the game.

But I’m also aware that a game that aims to be mainstream can’t make people think too much, because there are fewer smart people than average people (pretty much by definition lol).

In competitve counterstrike, builds are very vanilla and many people take similar loadouts. But since there’s not build wars, well, I suppose no one thinks. Right? That’s what you’re saying? The guy that got into position to fake a flashbang with a pistol for the win? He’s not a thinker at all!

And how about real life sports? Everyone starts with the same gear and the follow a strict set of the same rules. Well, gee, it’s all positioning and timing and no build wars.

I guess none of those people think either?

Doggie.3184:

So what I’m getting from the counter argument is humanity just isn’t intelligent enough to handle GW1’s in-depth skill system… /sigh. Why couldn’t we of evolved from dolphins or something?

It would be nice to be able to remove the skills useless to my build on Thief and replace it with one that’s actually useful to it.

Completely agree, GW was just too hard apparently (not). Onoes we make our own build? GW2 is like, lolhere have everything you’ll ever need on one weapon set. Enjoy autoattack city with hilariously long cooldowns on your utility skills.

I HATE how I can’t switch out crappy death blossom and dancing dagger when all I use is 1,2,5. Completely pointless skills on my bar, and no way to swap them out. How is this even remotely good design? At least let me fill the useless skill slots with something else.

Seras.5702:

BRH CSULB Zombie.8421:

So game is built on GW1 engine.

That’s where you went wrong. No it isn’t.

Modified GW1 engine, so ya..

CoRtex.2157:

Let me say something, it seems that people think that if you have more skills, only the strongest set of them will be used. Well.. that’s mostly the case. But what you are forgetting is that that only counts for 1 part on the map. What having more skills is about is that you can adapt your build to your environment. With the current system it doesn’t matter where you are, you will always use the same skills. maybe change 1 or 2 skills for a certain dungeon, but that’s it. It doesn’t make the game verry dynamic, it makes it boring & grindy. That’s also why i never felt like grinding in GW1. It was called farming, and was kitten fun with all those builds.

I only used a handful of builds in GW and i played since beta. Those builds were the most effective builds, more often than not i didn’t even need to change them at all. We had fun messing with skills in pvp, but for the most part, the builds that were popular were so for a reason. I thought i’d miss being a monk and clicking on bars, i’m glad that’s gone.

GW2 has it’s balance problems, but none of them as glaringly broken as the meta builds GW had. At several points in it’s history, there were builds that simply dominated all others. People were pigeon-holed into roles and classes that they had to run, it was silly. I like the chaos of battle GW2 skill system provides, I’m not looking at which skill i need to cast anymore, i just know since the bar is always the same. I simply spend more time reacting to the fight.

I hope anet reviews what they’ve said and add at least 100 new skills for each class. Will i be kitten if there’s cloned Feedback? F NO…. I want it and give me! Will i cry if there’s a cloned Decoy? No, give me plz.

Someone said it, and it wins the thread for ideas they might implement – give each weapon type double the current number of skills. Allow players to choose which skills they want for 1-5. Most of them could be replica’s from GW1, without much problem.

(The guns present a problem, but that’s why I never wanted frigging guns in my fantasy game anyway. Rageface.)

Erasculio.2914:

DocHolliday.5921:

Really? I wonder why they haven’t shut it down yet then. Maybe because there’s still people playing it, despite GW2 being out?

And why do you think they have stopped supporting it? Why no chapter 4, why was Utopia cancelled, and so on? The skill system in GW1 prevented ArenaNet from making the game grow anymore. Without the ability to grow, there was little more for GW1 other than withering and dying, as it has been doing.

DocHolliday.5921:

No it’s not. Aside from dodging, positioning mattered just as much in GW, despite not having pulls.

False. The fact the game allows people to cast skills on the move, the presence of pulls and pushs, the way projectiles work now, projectile reflection, having all abilities cast on allies being available only as area effects (instead of having people click on an ally’s health bar), and many other factors show how positioning is much more important than in GW1.

You appear to have the false belief that GW2 is GW1 sans hexes. That’s not how the game works. The entire combat system is considerably more position-based and (player) skill-based than in GW1.

Get your facts right they stopped utopia because of engine limits the ideas they had couldn’t work hence gw2. If they made more gw1 xpacs I would be back, I would play gw1 now but I’ve all done.

Chopps.5047:

Vayne.8563:

dimgl.4786:

Vayne.8563:

Because GW 1 was very well balanced. It was so easy to balance all those skills. What you might not be realizing is that GW 1 was a nightmare for some people, because of the number of skills. People didn’t know how to make builds. A lot of people tried the game, failed heavily and went on to different games. Anet doesn’t want that to happen again.

Now people are forced to take a self-heal. They’re forced to have at least some skills that work together. Sure it doesn’t suit you, personally. Doesn’t particularly suit me either. But that doesn’t mean it’s not better from a design point of view, or better for the game.

The combination of the number of skills in Guild Wars 1 and the second profession mechanic made the game virtually impossible to balance. It screwed with PvP and PVe became so easy it was meaningless, down to the point where you could use a Rit to solo farm ectos in the underworld.

I too miss the skill selection from Guild Wars 1, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a good reason for not having it in Guild Wars 2.

Omg! A game that makes players think?! SAY IT AIN’T SO!

I love games that make you think. I also recognize that the kind of game Guild Wars 2 was going to be depends on traffic and, unfortunately, if you make people think, you’ll seriously limit the number of people playing the game. Guild Wars 1 had 20% of the staff of Guild Wars 2. This is a much bigger project and has to appeal to a much wider audience.

WoW doesn’t make anyone think and has a zillion players. Guild Wars 1 did make people think and had far less (though many just as devoted). I’m a Guild Wars 1 fan and loved the game.

But I’m also aware that a game that aims to be mainstream can’t make people think too much, because there are fewer smart people than average people (pretty much by definition lol).

In competitve counterstrike, builds are very vanilla and many people take similar loadouts. But since there’s not build wars, well, I suppose no one thinks. Right? That’s what you’re saying? The guy that got into position to fake a flashbang with a pistol for the win? He’s not a thinker at all!

And how about real life sports? Everyone starts with the same gear and the follow a strict set of the same rules. Well, gee, it’s all positioning and timing and no build wars.

I guess none of those people think either?

Your not a football/ soccer fan are u lol the " build wars" happens each season buying the best players….. What sort of sport do u watch must involve robots if u think the same rules and gear means they are the same. Add to the fact u need to set your team to counter their “build” (formation)