Changing Skills on the fly, seriously, Why not?

Ok, you say that players get 8 skills on the skill bar because they are "rings". Well, if I had a ring on and needed a different one, why could I not simply replace it? I understand that quite a few of the people at GW used to work for Blizzard. Changing skills sets in Diablo on the fly was possible. You develop this game with these huge areas where players travel thru multiple portals between towns facing a host of "different" baddies and do not allow us to fine tune our skills in the field? Yes, we can always go back after we die(or map out prior) and try a different strategy, but that is just a tad bit frustrating to say the least when you spend time putting together a "human" team for a particular quest. Shouldn't you be incorporating the better points of previous games to make this one the best??

one of core concept of the game is the strategy behind your skill bar.

making all skill avaible will make this game boring

Are you trying to tell us that you wanna be able to change skills DURING the battle? thats kinda dumb. I would like it however to change skills on the fly IN outposts...it gets annoying haveing to change my ele from air to earth to fire every rezone. I'd to have under the skills window another tab saying builds which you can carry up to say...4-5 builds, that would make my day easier. I can always redo my attributes for now...but its hard on even monks and warriors that go from sword to axe is hard to switch skills all the time. It would reduce the time from 3-10 minutes to change----> to 30secs-2 minutes.

I would say that Manxmann is right but not on the fly. You should have to do a command like /rest and wait 30 sec then the skill tab and attribute can be changed and once you changed it you now have a 120 sec of obligatory resting for the skills to become charged. That only on a /stand or movement with the arrow or a mouse click.

Exemple : I am farming a certain type of monster in 2 different area. The 2 are are separated by an area with a kind of monster that will eradicate you with that certain farming build. so you rest wou change build and go fight. Then you change area and return to your last build. (only working in explorable map and only 1 time)

Delarn

What's with the Diablo comparison? This game isn't modeled at all after Diablo.

Can you change your deck mid-match in M:tG?

With certain deck in MTG you can have a side deck or multiple side deck so you can switch to that backup deck to unbalance strategy. Those have been banned in later edition of MTG but it has been there.

And the fact is that I think the game should allow to change those "rings" like he said. You got all those skill in background and cant touch them to help you ... what a waste. Oh yeah in real life when you are in vacation does that mean you cannot do your job anymore ? is a mecanic forgetting how to repair a car after he has punched out or he will go fix his car ...

The same thing in guildwars would be great but with some limitation to change build one time only and having a 120 recharge penality to that change would be a nice thing to put.

Of course I do no mean "while" in a battle....THAT would be very dumb indeed. And I do not even mean to suggest a full fledged resetting of skills and attribute points. I simply meant that I have found myself wanting a different skill many times after passing thru a portal enroute to a final destination. Haven't you?? Wouldn't it nice if players could slide off to a safe area and change a "ring" that is better fitted to specific encounter than the ones that they equipped as they left the town one or two portals ago?

And as far as the strategy of the skill bar goes, yes I agree, it is a part of the game. I just don't see it as that BIG of a part of the game. Strategy takes the back seat when a player cannot exercise tactics to engage, dupe, or avoid enemy forces. As much as we like to play it, it is built to favor the game, not the player. GW is a game, it is a challenge of mettle. The satisfaction most players get is likely making it thru a tough mission or the flow of rewards.

the ONLY thing i would support would be filling empty slots and reordering currenty-applied skills.

anything else takes away the strategy behind only 8 skills

Partly agree with OP.. but won't make it as free as change any skill.

My reason and suggestive way in this thread...
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...59#post1698759

What strategy there is ?
It would be startegy if you would have real skill not powers. Skills are something you can't remove you have them and use them when you need them, like in dnd or in other rpg. Then you can use 8 powers because you memorized them ... ok so it work like spell in dnd. so if you rest long enough in explorable you should be able to switch skill with some penalty but you would be able too.

If you can find me a stategy in the fact that if you are exploring the map and are getting killed by all thing because you don't have the good spells on then you are not able to use strategy you are playing to a gnomish game.

ask your self what is real strategy, being able to change once in every explorable by resting or dying because you don't have the right spells?

There was me thinking in Diablo once you picked your skillset you were stuck. Last time i checked most of the builds on the game used 5 skills max, 1 or 2 excessively and the rest for synergies.

... because I say no.

then say yes ...

A side board would be interesting in guildwars if they put in 2 out of 3 matches with no rest in between. Perhaps you could take 4 skills in your sideboard and swap them out as needed for the second and third games.

I know this is different than what the O.P. suggested, but it would add a layer to the game that could be interesting.

Nah side deck in MTG was not good ... in PVP you have a build you need to keep it. PVP is combat back to back if you die you get the chance to re adjust. PVE is an other story, you need to explore every bit of land to get title and other stuff like that, so you change not once but many time of explorable place. so you would want to change some part or all of your skill and attribute. Getting DP, having your skill on recharge for 5 min or any thing that can make you scream like a lil girl because you do it then it doesn't matter because you changed the skills to fit the place you are in ...

Thats a good idea! Hell, lets get rid of secondary professions and allow everyone to use any kind at all. While we're at it, unlocking skills is a pain, they should all be available at L1. But wait, lets make the game a little easier, get rid of leveling too!

There! Now we have the most boring game ever.

/not signed

Eight skills keeps the game challenging - kind of like chess - try to think a couple of moves ahead.

WOW, I'm not saying kill the game, I'm saying that having the ability to change your skill once and having major flaw for it will be better than not being able to. I may tell you this, gw is spell based game, skills are not made like that, skills are made like in real RPG, Fallout, DnD, Shadowrun, Vampire, WereWolf, Cyberpunk, Gurps and so on. GW is spell based because every skill need a kind of energy to use, adrenaline or energy, even health sacrifice. The attribute in this game are in fact skills, so you need those to do dmg, your spells are better and so on.

Oh yeah btw, chess is a game that play with 24 pieces not 8. You can do strategy by changing cap at every turn.

The game will still be challenging, and less frustrating because of the ability of changing skill once in each explorable (EXPLORABLE) not in pvp or GVG or anything against human player (if there is something else than human player tell me I want to see them, AI are not player sorry they are programs. )

1. I think the skill in putting together an effective skill bar is a big part of the game (in both PvP and PvE)

2. Allowing the ability to change skills on the fly undermines skills which are not as good but have a more general scope. Why take elemental resistance when you can just swap between the appropriate mantras (i.e. mantra of flame, mantra of frost, etc.)?

3. Introducing a PvE only mechanic hampers skill balancing. The environment in which skills are balanced is based on PvP play. The more differences between this balancing environment and the actual play environment means a greater chance that skills will not be balanced in the play environment.

Skill stats are designed for 8 skill limit. Changing on fly would break almost all skills. Team work is necessary.