Petition: Support non-core proffesions if future chapters

Request - Support non-core professions, such as Assassin, Ritualist, Dirvish, an Paragon, in all future chapters. Even if you only add 10 skills to each and 5 new weapon skins, add something.

Purpose - Give players who have invested time into the marketed professions.

Reasoning - Many players have invested a lot of time in their characters. Some have become Ritualist/Assassin specialists. If you are a PvE Ritualist/Assassin and there is no new skills/weapons for you in the future chapters, there is simply no forseeable incentive for going through future chapters beyond grasping the storyline (Which, no offense, haven't been spectacular in Prophecies or Factions). Once you play through the chapter as a core-class, what reason do you have for playing through it with a non-core class?

Assassin/Ritualist were marketed as the drawing point for Factions; They were both on the cover/back, the story-line NPCs were more often than not, Ritualist and Assassins, and the preorder weapons were for Ritualist and Assassin.

Imagine you decide to buy Factions as a stand-alone game and have not played Prophecies before. Seeing Assassin/Ritualist everywhere on the cover, you'd naturaly choose those as your first profession (likely investing the most time advancing them with opimal armor/weapons/skills).

After spending large chunks of time making your Assassin/Ritualist "perfect", you hear on some forums somewhere that your character will not be supported in future chapters.

RPGs are naturally all about building up your character, optimizing and advancing them, even in Guild Wars. That is the draw to RPGs for most. When you discover that your character cannot advance anymore, you naturally wish to abandon him/her.

While A.Net did state that they would not support any non-core professions in future chapters, they DID NOT communicate it well to the general public, misleading some to believe that their Assassin/Ritualist would be supported in future chapters.

I know many people who will not be buying Nightfalls simply because they saw A.Net advertising Assassin/Ritualist so fevorishly, created/advance/specialised in one of their own, only to discover that Assassin/Ritualist would be abandoned in future chapters.



Personaly, I do not see any reason to optimize (spend all of your gold creating a perfect) Dirvish/Paragon who will not be supported in future chapters, and most likely will become obsolete from lack of variety (in skills) compared to the core-classes.

Alternative - On the back of the retail back of Guild Wars: Nightfalls, in big bold red letters, write "Dirvish and Paragon will not be supported in future chapters; No new skills, no new armor, no new weapons. There will be no incentive for a Dirvish/Paragon primary to go through future chapters."

Atleast it will improve communication.

They've said multiple times that Chapter specific class won't be supported in other chapters. Not hard to understand. You can still take your favorite character through the story and play in the arena's, just no new skills or armor. Whats the big deal?

I would like to see Non-Core Classes played on expansions. Atleast for now while there are only 8 classes to chose from. i understand that later if they keep adding classes it will be more difficult to make new armor and skills for all classes other then core, but for now.... 2 new kinds or armor and skills... not that much more. I fully appreciate that A-Net has alot on thier plates but adding new armor for non-core chars would not take ANYTHING away from the game and would add entertainment for those of use who plan on buying all expansions. If it becomes too much work in the future they could just offer new updates for specific types of classes like: updates for casters, healers, long range attackers, and melee damage dealers. That way sooner or later all classes will have new armor and skills and players can choose which expansions they want to buy based on thier favorite characters. This is just what i think but eh... what do i know?

Since not all chapters aren't added in every chapter...does it seem to amke sense maybe these chapters may, possibly, have new content for the existing classes? Since they won't need to add new classes, it seems like they could use that time to make new things for the old.

Nah..new proffesions for the new chapters. Since they are "expansions" they dont really have to carry over from the last expansion. Maybe its not an expansion but i consider it to be...i mean cmon i would be COMPLETELY lost, confused, aggravated with factions the second i set foot off the little island if i didnt have prophecies. Just bring ur sin or rit over if u want to enjoy the new content.
Maybe we dont know what they gonna do cuz chap 3 will be the first "stand alone, idk if they gonna call it that again" with an expansion b4 it...so we will have to see.

I personally like the idea of having non-core classes stay in their chapter. I have a hard time buying all the primary profession skills for each of my characters (3 core and 1 chapter) and doing the main quest 4 times. Sorry but no, I think non-core characters should stay in their chapter. And I don't plan on bringing my ritualist through future chapters, 5 characters to go through the main quest? That is murder to me, I have other things to do.

I think the no-new-profession chapters will be the ones that have new skills/armor/weapons for all classes. Core and everything.

If not then...whats the purpose of them?

Do you honestly think a petition will prompt them to do months of extra work? You have to look at these things from a business standpoint, it would not be cost effective to support every class throughout future chapters.

I just deleted my assassin, which I really enjoyed playing because of the no future support. Looking at the bigger long term picture (if there is one considering the sad content that was in Factions...); we can see some major issues by supporting all the new classes.

Factions has such a small area and had to support 8 types of mob bosses for caps and item drops. Nightfall (if the area is actually semi large) will still have to support 8 types, if they support the Factions based characters, that makes 10. By Chapter 4, that's 12 and so on. Eventually; if content is actually added to the game and GW continues on, we would see 20 something bosses all in one zone trying to support all the classes.

Added classes are "fun" additions but have no real long term play other than what the core secondary can offer them.

Now if the GW engine is altered to allow real open terrain; as in less of valley running, then I can see supporting all classes as the openess would be better to support such a thing.

well it wouldn't be more work. i'm saying... they are alreaady doing 6 core class additions. all 6 classes get new armor. Instead of that.... give new armor and skills to casters only, or to melee dmg dealers only, or to long range damage dealers only, or healers only. That way... it isn't making more work, just redirecting the work already being done, the consumer can choose which expansions he or she wishes to buy, eventually all the classes will have upgrades and so everyone is happy, Anet doesn't have to do any extra work, and we get what we want too.... everyone is happy. a maximum of 6 chars would be upgraded with each expansions and eventually ALL chars will have upgrades by breaking all classes up into class groups. There you go.... balance in the GW universe is upheld.

Did they imply that the non-core classes wern't getting new skills? Because it raises some imbalancing issues if core classes are in the line to get any more skills...

/signed first off they aren't going to be adding new classes every chapter.. duh.. so they do have time, and besides maybe they can just release periodic , 6 month :O patches to give the people "left behind" in the chapters some more skills, because like terra said, there will very likely be a HUGE imbalance in favor of core classes if non-core classes are not maintained. As is we already have enough comparances to core classes, enough "core classes are the best" stuff, we need to get a little more acceptance for the new classes, change isn't always that bad guys