Classes & Continents

Why can we not make Ritualists or Assassins in Elona?

(For that matter, why can we still not make them in Tyria? Generic NPCs for 'Foreign Professions' would be easy enough).

Also, will we ever be able to mix/match different chapters aesthetics? Canthon necro hair on an Elonian necro, etc.

Same reason we cannot make them in Tyria. They are Cathan born characters only, they cannot be made anywhere else.

Hence the 6 "core" professions. I think.

well, if you could, why would anyone buy Guild Wars: Factions?

Two words for you: chapter specific.

There's no excuse for you not to be able to make them and enjoy them if you have them available on your account. "Chapter specific" or not. It's a really fruitless limitation that surely makes noone happy and plenty frustrated.

Ugh....you make my head hurt

Sorry but you get what you get. A/ and Rt/ are factions only, sorry you have such a big problem with it but I assure you, it's not going to change. Just make and assassin or rit, bring it to the mainland, go to kaineng center, and continue on to Elona from there, that's the best you can do for yourself.

Edited for run-on sentence.

So it's alright that they tell people you can't completely play Paragon/Ritualist or an Assassin/Dervish in a PvE campaign? So much for linking accounts giving you full options for everything.

Simple, when you buy Factions, they apear in the character creation menu.

Take Paragon/Dervish to Canthon. Travel to Senji's corner. Add Assassin or Ritualist class.

I'm sure there will be a Profession Changer in Nightfall as well and we can take our Factions/Prophecies characters there

Here's a very legitimate excuse: game mechanics. By your theory, we should be able to make Assassins and Ritualists in Tyria (and Elona, but this deals only with Tyria). So what you mean, then, is that ArenaNet should change the entire Prophecies mechanism by adding Assassin and Ritualist enemies to the game, effectively changing the very thing Factions is based on?

Answer: no. Prophecies is Prophecies, and Sins and Rits are Factions. You can take your sin and/or Rit to Tyria, and play them there. Same with Elona. You gain this privilege by linking accounts. You should be grateful you can take them there.

Why can't you play those combos? No one said you couldn't. But you can't from the beginning. The are specific for full development from the chapter they belong to. Do you realize how much programming would have to be done to allow you to create a tyrian born sin, ritualist, dervish and paragon? Add new NPCs with skills for them (skills that don't exist in that product), new class specific quests, weapons added in of the various levels and new skins to accomodate them.

You can change secondaries, that's good enough.

So, buy factions and play them. Chapter specific, and there is no Not. Why would any pvp player ever buy another chapter.. if this kind of idea was implemented?

Sure you can say that you dont want to have to Buy it- people worked very hard to make this game, and what- they shouldnt get paid?

I fail to see any kind of profitable marketing strategy by just saying "oh whatever do whatever you want- its on the house."

PvP is no discussion here. And I -do- own Factions. I just want to be able to play whichever character class combination I want through any of the chapters; there's NO reason whatsoever I can't. Each chapter can easily just have a generic pair of NPCs that are "Trainers for Foreign Professions".

I'm NOT saying that Nightfall should include Ritualist and Assassin. I'm saying it should let you play them in that chapter.

I really don't see why there's any opposition to this.

My guess...

The required change to the content and balancing was not worth it. Basically, Tyrian NPCs, monsters, skills, armors and weapons reward system did not account for Rits and Sins or any other future professions (how could they). Not to mention the balancing of monsters in regards to Canthan skills. ANet would need to change every skill quest NPC, probably tweak some of the monsters to keep it balance, add armor/weapon to all crafters and collectors, etc, etc.

They would need to do this to ALL chapters for EVERY time a new chapter is released. So by Ch 4, Prophecies content would be modified 3x already.

It is just limitation of the chapter based structure that ANet decided (aka no monthly but new chapters every 6-8 months).

You can play them in that chapter? You just can't create them in that chapter.

You really don't have an understanding of what it would take to allow you to create non-core, and non-current-chapter specific characters in foreign chapters. For you to say just slap in a few generic trainers is ludicrous and ignorant (and I mean that in the true definition of the word.)

I don't see why you can't understand their reasoning on this.

If the professions and skills were balanced internally against each other (which they are and are supposed to be), this is a complete non-issue.

Just like I can "play" my ritualist in Tyria and not get any rewards for completing one third of the missions?

Certain areas, where monsters are designed to kill spellcasters and remove enchantments are simply decimated by ritualists because their rituals are not spells or enchantments.

The skills are balanced, monsters are not.

To compensate for classes being brought over would require buffing those monsters and im sure a lot of players would whine.

How about the fact that Canthans coming to Tyria would almost certainly be at Max armor with max weapons at Lion's Arch? yes tyrians can get the same, but not without a little bit of cash.

To balance out the stronger Canthans would mean increasing levels of monsters in LA area and beyond.

Fix = let the characters start in Tyria, or at least let chapter changing happen MUCH earlier.

I dunno. I feel that there's no good argument for not MINIMALLY adding classes to other chapters. As far as I can see, the game machanic restrictions are very minimal if you're not trying to fully integrate them into the story:

1) There's really no need to fully populate the environments with class mobs from other chapters. Like everyone has argued in the past, ad nauseam, those classes are born elsewhere. Just use the mobs that are there. Non-core classes never being pit-up against their mob counterpart in the chapter they weren't originally made for isn't really going to break the game.

2) Adding more code is minimal. Skill NPCs and Armor NPCs are already designed to only show you skills and gear from your class anway. Quest rewards that grant skills are also procedurally determined because they are specific to your build (anyone who's played multiple characters knows this). There would be a few NPCs to add, but aside from that, it's not the end of the world. Anet programmers aren't stupid. Everything was designed modularly so that they could use the same proceedures on different sets of data. Any software developer/engineer knows this practice very well and strives for it.

3) Playing Rit or Asn in Tyria doesn't have to be this "enriching experience" where the the character class is completely canon to the progression of the story. Again, it's just extra.

I can't stress enough (because I know someone will read about half of this post and flame the holyhell out of me as they usually do)... Yes, doing a full integration of new classes is too insane to be practical, but just bare necessities I think is very feasible and enough to keep people happy.

You truely don't understand the work that this would take. For example, start a new character in prophecies, you go out of ascalon city and a trainer of your proffession gives you your first skill quest, for them to add assassins, ritualists (and Paragons and Dervishes when Nightfall comes out), they would have to include new trainers, TOTALLY new first skill quests (each of those are different for each proffession), update EVERY skill trainer with skills for the newly added classes, recode EVERY quest that has a skill reward in the game. Etc., now, I don't know if you want to code all this, but I know I sure as HELL wouldn't.

Mmm, handy thread.
I only own Prophecies and I was agonising over whether or not Nightfall would let people start with those extra two Factions jobs. ANet says that these are chapters, not expansions, and that would have seemed too... expansiony. Like a progression: Prophecies -> Factions -> Nightfall.

One thing I wish though... I wish that two of the Core jobs had been made Prophecies-only when Factions was released, like some of the skills are. I just like symmetry

True, I don't understand exactly how much work this might take, but you don't know how coding in general works. It's all 'automatic', already handled by the game! Only data files would be changed. Already Canthan characters can get to later stuff in Tyria and it's not broken (you just get no skill for non-core professions). Nothing had to be changed! Already the quest NPCs know to look at your profession and give you what's necessary based on your profession; already armor and skill vendors only show you what's for your profession(s) and which ones are available in your region. Skills in Cantha are already limited to how far you are in the game for which you can buy then -- simple enough to tell skill trainers "use this template". But no more discussion of 'code' -- it's pointless and should NEVER be brought up anywhere in any discussion. Talk on merit of the idea and concept itself, not its "coding" feasibility (and just being blanket and immediate naysayers because of it). That's for A.net to discern once they see what the community would actually enjoy to see and use.

We're asking for the ability to play. We're NOT asking for total integration. There doesn't need to be an extra quest for each new profession -- just a generic one for "all future classes" and whatnot. Or even make the profession have "beginner only" skills until they get to the point that they can cross over to their 'homeland'. You don't have to change monsters at all, even if a ritualist might be slightly overpowered for a while. Most people who have newer chapters will only be playing through Prophecies as a re-play or extra play on a second character.

WHY oh WHY are people completely against the notion, offended by the idea, of allowing any character profession to go and play anywhere in the game? It's just more options for you to play! There are no appreciable counterarguments other than "it's jut the way it is", "that's just not how it is" and "it can't be coded".

Does this mean that there will be Rit/Sin bosses in Elona then? you know, to cap the new Elites from?

I'm still totally confused about how far Rits and Sins will be integrated/made available in Nightfall.

I hope Rit and Assassins aren't in Nightfall at all.

Why? Because the two new Nightfall classes aren't in Factions at all.

These are meant to be separate chapters, not expansions in a series.

Obviously it would be better if Rit and Sin got put into Nightfall AND the two Nightfall classes got put into Factions (Whether that is just skill-wise, or actually allowing the jobs to start there). I just like symmetry, and the no-crossover option sounds more likely than the symmetrical-crossover one.

Edited for poor grammar.
And just to say - on top of that, I wish two Prophecies classes had been Prop-only rather than core - for further symmetry. But I just like symmetry.