Guild Wars 2

Can we finally have more runes in our skills bar? At least only in PVE.

It would be more fun & variety if Guild Wars has not limit on how many skills bars you want to use. 2 more slots would be enough (Only in PVE).

Only the last 5 skills can be selected by players And I don’t feel comfortable even though I try to select others skills (lacks slots) idk It is not enough for me.

No thank you. The system is about syntax complexity, not about structural complexity (Its about smart combination, not brute accumulation). The new “extra button” for “ancient magicks” is already destroying this beautiful balance. Please don’t add more unnecessary buttons.

I agree we need more slots for pve

Gw1 was a game about limited slots and coming up with different and complex builds from what was given. This game is nothing like that because their are two few skills and even their statement about the burden of gw1 skills doesn’t add up since the skills came with expansions and the gap between the amount of skills between gw1 and gw2 is so wide it’s obviously a different philosophy.

In gw2 we have few skills and few options limiting us to very few builds because that makes it easier for esports to limit options.

If we’re not going to get new skills in regard to our core builds that expand rather than make near presets rdy for esports with named specializations.

Then the obvious solution is seperate the esports component from the rest of the game. A very direct way is to increase slots like tc stated as this would be a visual and direct way to tell people this mode is different and the elitist nature has no place in this game mode.

The first 5 skills are also selected by the players when you select your weapon.
There is little to no reason to add more skill slots in the game other than killing variety and any sense of balance.

I like the current system actually. But they could let us modify the UI. Since the release of GW2 Anet is extremely stubborn to let us change it. We can’t have additional side bars for food, tonics, gizmos etc. We can’t have additional weapon slots to change out of combat. We always have to open the kitten inventory. It’s so annoying. Why won’t they let us modify the GUI?

Ardid.7203:

No thank you. The system is about syntax complexity, not about structural complexity (Its about smart combination, not brute accumulation). The new “extra button” for “ancient magicks” is already destroying this beautiful balance. Please don’t add more unnecessary buttons.

+1!

ProtoGunner.4953:

I like the current system actually. But they could let us modify the UI. Since the release of GW2 Anet is extremely stubborn to let us change it. We can’t have additional side bars for food, tonics, gizmos etc. We can’t have additional weapon slots to change out of combat. We always have to open the kitten inventory. It’s so annoying. Why won’t they let us modify the GUI?

Agreed, please let us change UI layout

I agree. I like the current balance and I had to buy a gaming mouse just to hit 6-0 >_< So instead please let us change the UI. I’d love my tonics and foods in one place. My 14 slot shared inventory gave me a tiny bit of organization by having my most important stuff all above everything. Now I see the benefits and want the rest nice and neat!

FlOwMaKeRs.8623:

Can we finally have more runes in our skills bar? At least only in PVE.

It would be more fun & variety if Guild Wars has not limit on how many skills bars you want to use. 2 more slots would be enough (Only in PVE).

Only the last 5 skills can be selected by players And I don’t feel comfortable even though I try to select others skills (lacks slots) idk It is not enough for me.

I had trouble adjusting at first. Heck, when I heard about the first five skills being determined by weapon choice, I considered skipping GW2 — it sounded awful.

After playing with the system for a few weeks, I couldn’t imagine going back to GW1’s.

I recommend that you try to figure out how to make it work, rather than to hope that ANet makes a fundamental change like adding slots for PvE (and not for the other modes). Even if ANet agrees with you today, it would be 12-24 months before we’d see it.

Hmmm.. I only wish we could swap out elite skill for ANY other utility skill because honestly, a lot of the elites are trash. I’d take an extra condi cleanse or mere leap outta there skill anyday.

Opportunity costs are important to games. Allowing players to select all the skills they want would remove opportunity cost and make PvE even easier.

No thanks.

People will always feel they have too few skill slots, no matter how many you give them (as long as its less than the number of skill slots they can slot obviously). And frankly, people SHOULD always feel like they have too few skill slots, it means they have to make meaningful decisions.

They’ll introduce this feature.

And lock it behind a mastery like auto-loot lol

wrathmagik.3518:

They’ll introduce this feature.

And lock it behind a mastery like auto-loot lol

actually, i don’t mind that. i have tones of mastery point ready for that, so do others i believe.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I had trouble adjusting at first. Heck, when I heard about the first five skills being determined by weapon choice, I considered skipping GW2 — it sounded awful.

After playing with the system for a few weeks, I couldn’t imagine going back to GW1’s.

How did that work? How can determined weapon skills be better than letting you choose whatever skills you like?

I’d quite like some flexibility in choosing the first 5 skills rather than having them set by my weapon choice. They could still limit the choices based on weapon but it would be nice to have a bit of variety.

Tekey.7946:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I had trouble adjusting at first. Heck, when I heard about the first five skills being determined by weapon choice, I considered skipping GW2 — it sounded awful.

After playing with the system for a few weeks, I couldn’t imagine going back to GW1’s.

How did that work? How can determined weapon skills be better than letting you choose whatever skills you like?

GW1 was a balance nightmare. The amount of options made it so that a very large percentage of the skills was never used. Compared to the differences in usefulness between options in GW1 the differences in power between options in GW2 are nothing. People always say that GW1 was full of build diversity, but GW1 was even more prone to FotM builds than GW2 is.

And that was before the terrible introduction of PvE skills.

I dont think we should get more slots, the core and hot balance will be screwed up. But I do want the elite skill to be interchangeable with normal skills. as an engineer, that slot’s just gathering dust.. I can almost make a dustblower weapon with it..

Zephyra.4709:

Hmmm.. I only wish we could swap out elite skill for ANY other utility skill because honestly, a lot of the elites are trash. I’d take an extra condi cleanse or mere leap outta there skill anyday.

I would rather have elite skills adjusted so that they are worth taking and using. First part of the adjusting would be lowering the CDs on all or nearly all core spec elite skills, then adjusting the effects of some of the more underwhelming elites. Seriously, these skills just are not good enough to only be able to use once every 2-3 min on average

OriOri.8724:

Zephyra.4709:

Hmmm.. I only wish we could swap out elite skill for ANY other utility skill because honestly, a lot of the elites are trash. I’d take an extra condi cleanse or mere leap outta there skill anyday.

I would rather have elite skills adjusted so that they are worth taking and using. First part of the adjusting would be lowering the CDs on all or nearly all core spec elite skills, then adjusting the effects of some of the more underwhelming elites. Seriously, these skills just are not good enough to only be able to use once every 2-3 min on average

Indeed. And a worrying number are also Transform skills: Rampage, Norn racials, necro plague swarm, etc. They don’t flow well because of their animation quirks, and their skills don’t really hit hard enough to justify using them in most cases.

Wouldn’t mind seeing elites that fill all of the skill types a profession has, but that’s wistful dreaming. Same for healing skills.

As for having more skills on our toolbar..? I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it. While I’d like more latitude to take other useful skills that I wouldn’t normally bring, the problem is that most skills just aren’t worth taking. So from a meta/balance perspective, any open skill slots would just fill up with the ‘mandatory’ selections as dictated by what comes next on the hierarchy of utility.

I’d maybe, maybe be more on board with more slots if it came with restrictions:
1. The secondary utility bar has space for one of each type of a profession’s skills. Warrior would have one spare slot each for Shout, Banner, Physical, xor Stance skills. (Maybe have a fifth one for a loose Racial/Elite Spec? I’unno. It’s brainstorming.)
2. The abilities loaded to the secondary bar are diminished in some way. Much longer cooldowns, reduced effects, etc. The idea is to add some flexibility while still assessing an opportunity cost.
Buuut, that also wouldn’t work with Revenant very well (or would it?), so that’s still not a fantastic idea.

As it is, we get 3/16 utility choices, and 3/20 with an elite spec. That feels very narrow, and leads to the resentment of any utility skill that’s even remotely “not useful”. Granted, it’d be better to elevate those weak skills until they’re worth taking, but they may never reach that point without breaking some other balance item.

with gw1 u had 8 skill slots with the use of your elite skills in any of the skill slots. with gw2 u have an extra slot for just elite skills. that is 1 more slot then the first guildwars

Tekey.7946:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I had trouble adjusting at first. Heck, when I heard about the first five skills being determined by weapon choice, I considered skipping GW2 — it sounded awful.

After playing with the system for a few weeks, I couldn’t imagine going back to GW1’s.

How did that work? How can determined weapon skills be better than letting you choose whatever skills you like?

That was what I thought — it’s impossible, right? More choice is better!

But it wasn’t, in GW1. Most of the choices were useless or counterproductive. A lot of times, there were 2-3 competing skills for a build and one was nearly always so superior to the others, that there wasn’t a ‘real’ choice involved.

What GW2 provides is to make our personal skill and style more important than the specific skills. In GW1, I almost always needed to adapt builds to fit circumstances, while now I can adapt my gameplay.

As others have stated, because there are few permutations, it’s easier for ANet to balance what we do have. Of course, they don’t do a perfect (or even near-perfect job), but it’s harder for them to go completely wrong for the game’s overall balance.

Once example of this difference is for new players. In GW1, you had to have a ‘good’ build to survive in most areas and with so many choices, that became a stumbling block, causing folks to leave before they even tried a lot of the game. In GW2, it’s nearly impossible to have a build so bad that you can’t survive most of the game.

At the other end of ability, look at the difference between PUGs and qT (and other organized groups): folks using qT’s builds almost never achieve the same level of success as qT, because there are just so many ways to improve.

In short, GW1 was fun for build theory, but GW2 (for me and many others) is more fun for playing, which is where I want to spend more of my time.

I would prefer new weapon skills that would give us slot options within a given weapon type over new skill slots.

Diovid.9506:

Tekey.7946:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I had trouble adjusting at first. Heck, when I heard about the first five skills being determined by weapon choice, I considered skipping GW2 — it sounded awful.

After playing with the system for a few weeks, I couldn’t imagine going back to GW1’s.

How did that work? How can determined weapon skills be better than letting you choose whatever skills you like?

GW1 was a balance nightmare. The amount of options made it so that a very large percentage of the skills was never used. Compared to the differences in usefulness between options in GW1 the differences in power between options in GW2 are nothing. People always say that GW1 was full of build diversity, but GW1 was even more prone to FotM builds than GW2 is.

And that was before the terrible introduction of PvE skills.

There was still infinite build diversity, even if they weren’t optimal. I spent at least half my playtime in GW1 making builds.. that’s part of what made it so fun.

It was a balance nightmare? funny how we had less cancer builds in GW1 and more balance than we do in GW2. I prefer IWAY or RSPIKE / BSPIKE compared to the bunker nightmare, condi nightmare, or complete garbage builds like when turret engis were around. I never understood making AI so powerful, it takes zero skill.

All those meta builds in GW1 were destroyed by balanced, or aoe teams. I know cuz I beat them all the time, they were just builds for the noobs and let them advance the ladder before hitting a wall.

In GW2 there are much much less counters in the game so everyone ends up using the same meta, which makes the meta boring and stale and it never changes until ANet finally nerf the crap out of it then we move on to the next boring meta where everyone is still the same.

Meta in GW1 it felt changing like every month , not 6 but maybe cuz I enjoyed it more. They also had players team helping them balance (I forget what they were called) instead in GW2 we are all basically beta testers with no test realm, something that should be in any modern MMO.

Talking exclusively pve, yeah the balance was terrible. I mean just look at shadow form lol it changed like 10 times but never once stopped being an invulnerable skill. What was the friggin point in even changing it then? Makes no sense. But GW1 was more a pvp game.

Bunny thumper ranger and BB sin still 2 of my fav builds ever. You also gotta respect how we managed to find these builds in a sea of 1300+ skills

Rukia.9860:

Diovid.9506:

Tekey.7946:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I had trouble adjusting at first. Heck, when I heard about the first five skills being determined by weapon choice, I considered skipping GW2 — it sounded awful.

After playing with the system for a few weeks, I couldn’t imagine going back to GW1’s.

How did that work? How can determined weapon skills be better than letting you choose whatever skills you like?

GW1 was a balance nightmare. The amount of options made it so that a very large percentage of the skills was never used. Compared to the differences in usefulness between options in GW1 the differences in power between options in GW2 are nothing. People always say that GW1 was full of build diversity, but GW1 was even more prone to FotM builds than GW2 is.

And that was before the terrible introduction of PvE skills.

There was still infinite build diversity, even if they weren’t optimal. I spent at least half my playtime in GW1 making builds.. that’s part of what made it so fun.

It was a balance nightmare? funny how we had less cancer builds in GW1 and more balance than we do in GW2. I prefer IWAY or RSPIKE / BSPIKE compared to the bunker nightmare, condi nightmare, or complete garbage builds like when turret engis were around. I never understood making AI so powerful, it takes zero skill.

All those meta builds in GW1 were destroyed by balanced, or aoe teams. I know cuz I beat them all the time, they were just builds for the noobs and let them advance the ladder before hitting a wall.

In GW2 there are much much less counters in the game so everyone ends up using the same meta, which makes the meta boring and stale and it never changes until ANet finally nerf the crap out of it then we move on to the next boring meta where everyone is still the same.

Meta in GW1 it felt changing like every month , not 6 but maybe cuz I enjoyed it more. They also had players team helping them balance (I forget what they were called) instead in GW2 we are all basically beta testers with no test realm, something that should be in any modern MMO.

Talking exclusively pve, yeah the balance was terrible. I mean just look at shadow form lol it changed like 10 times but never once stopped being an invulnerable skill. What was the friggin point in even changing it then? Makes no sense. But GW1 was more a pvp game.

Bunny thumper ranger and BB sin still 2 of my fav builds ever. You also gotta respect how we managed to find these builds in a sea of 1300+ skills

Severely limiting gameplay and player freedom over balance concerns is not a good move, and it astounds me how many people think it is. Balance will never be perfect, so the more “careful” you are with it, the more diminishing returns you get. So after a certain point it becomes excessively wasteful and taxing to players.

I do think GW2 lost players early on over too much railroading, and having too few skills options spread out over too many levels. At this point, we need to be getting new weapon skill options for existing weapons, so that you can choose individual slots for weapon skills, in addition to getting new weapons in the game for players to play around with.

I also agree that the meta changes too slowly in GW2, due largely to them moving at a snail’s pace with balance adjustments. I think this does more harm than good to the game’s longevity.