Guild Wars 2

Before I get beaten to a pulp about mentioning this, or hopefully before my post gets merged into some bottomless pit of similar suggestions, I’d like to say that one of the great things about Guild Wars 1 was the ability to equip any weapon (or item excluding armor) on whichever class you want. Of course it was hysterical to see a Necromancer or a Monk wielding a hammer, or a Warrior auto attacking with a scepter.

The point is that there was an element of freedom, the constrictions were minimal, we could decide to be Assassins with our squishy caster classes if we wanted, and in some cases it worked – a mixture of creativity and skill could make the most far fetched idea possible.

While this might be slightly ridiculous to implement for some classes it’s still possible and would in many ways improve the game dramatically. As a huge fan of the games cosmetics, I often find myself wishing that I could pair a certain un-compatible weapon with a certain armor-set, even just for looks.

There are many more design barriers involved in introducing such a feat to the game other than the individuality of classes. I’ve read a few other similar topics (too dated to bring up) that bash the idea because it would make light/medium armor classes look stupid, which is absolutely obscene. We’ve all seen a Mesmer with an over-sized greatsword but we never question its compatibility with the nature of the game.

Furthermore trying to say there are too many problems with introducing more weapons to the Elementalist for example is just another way of saying the game developers are too lazy or the observers saying that’s “way too much work”. ^ I’m absolutely not saying anyone is lazy for clarification (you do a great job).

Universality made Guild Wars 1 my all time favourite game, for an MMO considered fodder to the supremacists MMOers I was happy as larry with it. We’re probably not going to see the ‘second professions’ and universal skills again but I don’t see why a few technicalities should stop anyone from wielding a certain weapon.

I’m not going to compromise by saying “a few more weapons on each class will do the trick”; it defeats the grounds of my point. “Exclusiveness” is a disease that has affected the game since day one. There is a reason why Warrior’s, Mesmer’s and Guardians are the most picked and favored of end game DPS classes.

I could blabber for days about the imbalance of Greatswords but at least my concerns and suggestions are out there. Cheers for reading, I hope I don’t get too much abuse X)

I don’t think anyone in good conscience can argue that there wasn’t more build freedom in Guild Wars 1 than in Guild Wars 2, and in some ways that’s a good thing…and in some ways it was a bad thing.

There were two problems that arose from the amount of freedom we had.

The first was the balancing issues, particularly around insanely overpower builds. There’s nothing like a permasin or an imbagon paragon in Guild Wars 2. There’s no 600 monk builds, or crazy spirit spammer builds. That’s a good thing, not a bad one.

The second problem is that a lot of people who tried Guild Wars 1 found it too hard to make builds, and they weren’t aware of websites like PvX wiki. So they simply left the game, because they couldn’t handle it.

The sweet spot of any game should be easy to learn, hard to master. I think Guild Wars 2 got the easily to learn down pat (at least when it comes to builds), but the hard to master still needs some work.

I think Anet overcompensated in Guild Wars 2, because it was so impossible for the to control Guild Wars 1. I think it’s time for the pendulum to swing back the other ways a bit.

I would LOVE to see this implemented. Any class using any weapon seems like great fun. However, it would likely be a right bloody nightmare to even begin to balance. And I say this as an engineer, who cannot swap weapons, and only has access to three items- Shield, pistol and rifle. That’s the whole of our weapon choices. Kits use up our utilities and are visually bad. So while I agree, I do have some reservations about the idea, and I certainly don’t see it happening.

They do plan to make every weapon available to every class..eventually.

Also personally I want the dual-class system back or for them to scrap classes completely. I wouldn’t even be THAT hard. The main concern people have for this is that it creates completely broken builds.

Well, first of all, everyone would have access to this completely broken build, secondly, there will be more ‘broken’ builds created to counter this broken build, and if all those builds and more builds created are broken, everything’s quite balanced.

The power creep is another problem, but I think most people would happily trade the power creep for more diversity.

Xae Isareth.1364:

They do plan to make every weapon available to every class..eventually.

Also personally I want the dual-class system back or for them to scrap classes completely. I wouldn’t even be THAT hard. The main concern people have for this is that it creates completely broken builds.

Well, first of all, everyone would have access to this completely broken build, secondly, there will be more ‘broken’ builds created to counter this broken build, and if all those builds and more builds created are broken, everything’s quite balanced.

The power creep is another problem, but I think most people would happily trade the power creep for more diversity.

People using the few broken builds is not diversity.

i want more weapon skills for existing weapons.

for example. say the warrior long sword skill 1 chain is

1. bleed
2. bleed
3. cripple

say i wanna swap to another 3 hit chain, maybe

1. damage
2. cripple +1 second
3. immobilize +1 second

etc.

and for the long sword skill 3, instead of final trust, i can swap it into another skill etc.

emikochan.8504:

Xae Isareth.1364:

They do plan to make every weapon available to every class..eventually.

Also personally I want the dual-class system back or for them to scrap classes completely. I wouldn’t even be THAT hard. The main concern people have for this is that it creates completely broken builds.

Well, first of all, everyone would have access to this completely broken build, secondly, there will be more ‘broken’ builds created to counter this broken build, and if all those builds and more builds created are broken, everything’s quite balanced.

The power creep is another problem, but I think most people would happily trade the power creep for more diversity.

People using the few broken builds is not diversity.

People aren’t just playing with a few builds at the moment?

Xae Isareth.1364:

emikochan.8504:

Xae Isareth.1364:

They do plan to make every weapon available to every class..eventually.

Also personally I want the dual-class system back or for them to scrap classes completely. I wouldn’t even be THAT hard. The main concern people have for this is that it creates completely broken builds.

Well, first of all, everyone would have access to this completely broken build, secondly, there will be more ‘broken’ builds created to counter this broken build, and if all those builds and more builds created are broken, everything’s quite balanced.

The power creep is another problem, but I think most people would happily trade the power creep for more diversity.

People using the few broken builds is not diversity.

People aren’t just playing with a few builds at the moment?

In a literal sense it’s not entirely true, but most builders revolve around high power/crit damage for dungeons so they end up with the same set of skills.

OT: I myself main a Necromancer and never use daggers, this pretty much leaves me with an axe or a staff for absolutely everything, scepters are built solely for conditions aside from ‘3’ which is actually a terrible skill.

Even though a power Necro does the most damage at close range they can only alternate between an axe or dagger, axe is relatively useless outside of its second ability and daggers are just plain weak – you achieve a higher rate of DPS with DS1 and a single axe/focus combo refills 30% or so LF.

The “meta” doesn’t really bother me, the only thing bothers me as that I can’t fulfill a role just because one class is “supposed to”. They were very clear about saying every class can and should be equal, but right now it couldn’t be different. Half the games classes, including mine are kicked because they can’t perform a role that is needed.

Universality isn’t a complete solution, but for what it’s worth I’d love to see people playing on the characters they love and be able to compete in end game without worrying about getting kicked.

doddbox.8153:

There are many more design barriers involved in introducing such a feat to the game other than the individuality of classes. I’ve read a few other similar topics (too dated to bring up) that bash the idea because it would make light/medium armor classes look stupid, which is absolutely obscene. We’ve all seen a Mesmer with an over-sized greatsword but we never question its compatibility with the nature of the game.

I dont know why they dont allow people to transmute armor pieces of different classes. I see tons of people complaining about the lack of diversity of armor skins, and that would just triple the number of armor pieces every character has access to. The skins are already modeled for every race…

Players can already have some diversity by using one weapon in hand instead of dual wielding. How often do you see it, even for roleplaying? Never. You can argue that this strictly inferior but of course if you introduce extra weapons into the game then most classes will have a few core weapon sets and the rest will be inferior.

The Norn shapechanging elites are diversity and provide fun for roleplayers but for each person loving them there are a dozen people asking why these elites are not fit for combat.

I used to walk around with a sword and shield on my necromancer in GW1 all the time. It was very handy for the free health boosts and extra armor. I kind of miss that now.

Stooperdale.3560:

Players can already have some diversity by using one weapon in hand instead of dual wielding. How often do you see it, even for roleplaying? Never. You can argue that this strictly inferior but of course if you introduce extra weapons into the game then most classes will have a few core weapon sets and the rest will be inferior.

The Norn shapechanging elites are diversity and provide fun for roleplayers but for each person loving them there are a dozen people asking why these elites are not fit for combat.

One weapon-set being stronger than the other doesn’t bother me, it’s the fact we can’t even try something new, you know, for fun. Adding more elements that need balancing make the game a lot funner, and it’s not particularly hard to balance weapons either since it’s usually a change to the stats and not so much animations/mechanics.

As for Elite Skills, I can only but pray that some day they’ll be fixed.