Question about Skill Rewards and its impact on the game

I have seen the other threads in regards to Skill Rewards... unfortunately many are asking if they exist anymore and none really contained anything that i really want to discuss about the subject...

Ill share my personally feelings about the situation...

After playing all 3 campaigns and knowing the "feel" of questing with and without the skill reward system... it basically comes down to this for me...

What is the point of even doing side quests anymore past lvl 20??? I ask this because once you reach lvl 20 at least for me I am no longer concerned about the XP gain from quests and I really never bothered careing about comendations /tokens etc because it just another waste of time for me to collect something to trade in for something else by having to go to this specific person and ultimately the time vs cost of just strait out buying the items is a lot more practicle vs collecting these items...

Now what used to give meaning to quests for me what that it was a way to get skills other than sinking 1k plus 1 skill point to buy them it made the game feel more like a game and not a grind... it gave purpose for me to do quests beyond lvl 20 and it removed the desie/need to FARM xp for skills points and gold...

really these quest for me get extremely tedious/boring/repetative when all they give is XP and some kind of token that can be traded in for things already avialable for sale on merchants..

I do find myself just ignoring all side quests past lvl 20 except for in NF when the reward is another hero to play with..

there is no title system for doing side quests and there are no other benefits to doing them... you dnot need side quests to explore to unlock cart you do not need these side quests for anything...

I miss having skill rewards...

another thing is that i believe it ruins the replayability of the game itself... after i played my first character through i found myself skipping every single side quest and just going for main objectives ad farming xp for my lvl gains... the time involved had no paracticle meaning...

I also believe that it limits character developement by all players even new players... when skills were rewards for quests players actually experimented with the skills now most dont waste the cash to buy a skill they don't think is usefull...

anyways... anyone else have another PoV...

and by no means am i saying remove the ability to buy skills... i would just enjoy having skill rewards for quests again... as an actual insentive to do them... i was disapointed knowing that the folks who origionally made skill rewards in prophacies did not do the same with NF...

Yep, I totally agree with you. Quests need better rewards, wether it's skills, gold, weapons etc. I just want a quest reward to actually be rewarding. Maybe a-net could design some really hard quests with awesome rewards (drools*). I think that having harder quests with better rewards would be awesome because people would actually quest. Maybe have some quests like arena battles where you just defeat wave after wave of monsters or you have to lay siege to a fortress or something that doesnt involve running around like an idiot talking to people and killing a boss, and all of that for 200g and 2k xp

Troubleeeeeeeeed Keeeeeeeeper

More quests of that caliber, with more substantial rewards would be much more interesting.

Ever since a few months into Factions, I stopped buying Expert Salvage kits. Why? Because I've saved all of the quest reward tokens and just use one each time one of my chars uses up their kit. I've still got quite a heft stockpile of those items. The tokens aren't worthless, they are like in store credits, and even though there is some restriction on how you can use em, they're still basically a cash reward.

There aren't skill quests anymore because too many people have too much money. It's a gold sink. If you do the quests you get enough gold along the way and through the quests to pay for more skills, and a lil stuff on the side for armor junk too. Basically playing the game as it's presented to you gives you enough reward to get everything you need. If you want everything and more though, you'll have to work for it.

You won't have to "grind" for it because, of course, there is no such thing as grind in Guild Wars. But if you play your cards right, or in this case your skill bar, you can find innovative ways to make cash. So then, with each new chapter, they make it harder to make gold, but yet there are still tons of people with massive ammounts of gold who and are still amassing more.

Disregarding random accusations that all people with tons of money are ebayers, somehow these people are still making tons of money. So then it stands to reason that it's still possible to get rich in Guild Wars, but now instead of copying farming builds that could run by anybody's pet monkey, you're gonna have to think about it more this time around. Still though I see a lot of clueless losers making gold; tons of gold, so it's not like you have to do that much thinking.

Think:
-what is it that I can obtain that will sell for a good profit to other players?
-what is the most efficient (easiest) way to obtain this product?

Or:
-what items do I want to have for my characters?
-what monsters or process must I go through to obtain these items directly without having to go through greedy real player sellers?

Or:
-is it worth it to spend all of my time in game amassing a non-existent measure of income, or should I focus more on enjoying the interaction with other players, such as my guildies, or seek enjoyment through observing all of the great artwork created for the monsters and explorable zones that I traverse through?

Knowledge is Powah O.o and the answers are out there. If you don't have time to think about all this nonsense and amass teh cash because of real world obligations You'll have to decide for yourself whether or not those real world obligations are more important and fulfilling than in-game rewards.

I'd prefer fewer quests. Nightfall has quite a few on the mainland, and I find they are fairly repetitive after a while. So many of the quests are much and much the same. I'd prefer fewer quests with better rewards, or just plain fewer quests and have the programmers,..etc work on other GW features.

It seems to me that there are many, many quests out there, and that there is nothing truley compelling me to do them. As much as I like the content, there seems to be too much at some times. Everything since proph feels too rushed, like they are trying to cram more content into a smaller space, (which to some extent is intentional). More quests are probably easier than more zones to create though. What I have also noticed is that there seems to be a much higher Outpost to Zone ratio as the chapters progress, some zones share their borders with 4 or 5 outposts/missions. That is a huge amount. I think that a somewhat lower density of things, spread out over a bit larger area, along with better quests/rewards would make the PvE MUCH more enjoyable. Just think of the shiverpeaks area. Yeah it was inconvienient to get to mineral springs or snake dance to cap that one spell you wanted but it, to some extent, was a challenge.

If it comes down to a matter of a lack of time, would people be willing to wait 3 more months per chapter? If it would make the PvE portion more enjoyable, or more repeatable, I would for sure.

I apologise if I rambled..

I'd like to see more quests that directly impact my story, like for instance if I let this NPC die, he is dead forever (unlike in Guild War's lame implementation where all you have to do is rezone and there he is again).

Talk about being hypocrites, you talk about "realism" when it is convenient for you, like for instance the AI update. On other fronts this game is ridiculously unrealistic and you just act as if there isn't any issue at all.

If I remember correctly you were the one stating how the aggroing the Torment enemies do is perfectly realistic.

It IS perfectly realistic isn't it?

My point is Anet will cite their motivation for the new AI as being increased realism, but what about the portals? Let's say my party almost died, one guy run through a portal, mysteriously every dead person is resurrected and enters the next zone?

Does this make sense?

Same with minion masters walking through a portal. Oy! What happens to all the minions? I won't even go into why a zone is completely repopulated in the 0.1 second it takes to enter into another zone and back again. This game doesn't even have the idea of persistent sessions.

I understand Anet probably has a matchbox for their servers but it gets lamer and lamer over time.

Ah I see what you were saying. Yeah it's a bit odd how parts of the game are realistic then it totally goes unrealistic. I'd rather them just pick one, cause I was looking at the buildings in the Hidden City and how they got on those rocks wouldn't be realistic at all. I like unrealistic games, just because the scenery is cooler, but I guess you have to have a mix of both.

guild wars for me has always been a casual game. i log on to have fun. i pvp, i gvg, i do pve. skill rewards were the sole reason i did side quests. i absolutely hated factions not having skills as rewards. i hated HAVING to farm for skills. i bought guild wars because they preached a no subscription and no GRIND. well the grind went out the window and the subscription probably will someday too.

i havent played nightfall hardly at all since i bought it. and i doubt ill buy the next chapter if they dont bring back skill rewards. ArenaNet changed a good casual game that i could enjoy after work, and on weekends. now i dont even play because i dont want to have to grind the 150 platinum ill need to start a new character and get all the skills i want. and due to the fact that i enjoy pvp and the competitiveness of it i really want ALL the skills. and i want all the skills on my pve and pvp characters. maybe ill buy the pvp editions but i havent played in about 2 weeks and i dont think ill play in the next 2 weeks.

please bring back skill quests.

I agree. The skill reward system in Prophecies was one of the best aspects of GW. They changed it so people could make more diverse builds, but I think they went about it in the wrong way.

Other than ideas already mentioned, I think it'd be awesome to link quests with Elite capping. Do a quest, get an Elite. Of course, I'm sure there are many that like the current system of capping the way it is....run out, kill boss, cap, end-of-story...but it's an idea.

Yeah, they had the idea to give a skillpoint and some xp to choose your own skill, but not every quest gave 1K for obtaining the skill you wanted. So it was the most lame idea ever IMO...
Suuuuuure, we have more than enough skillpoints to buy any skill we want. But do we have the money? ....

Some quests reward things that you can trade in to quartermaster-ish people.

Quests are boring because there's no reason for me to do them. After I got enough promotion points and xp, I just did only the primary quests and missions. They really need to bring back skill rewards.

doing the same quest with 10 characters is tedious no matter what the reward is

yes, I prefer skill rewards but *none* of my 8 nonTyrians do the Skill Quests in Prophecies - Id rather buy the skill

after doing the same quest 8+ times, the quest loses its meaning


same in Nightfall, my nonelonians could quest for 2500 Sunspear but I'd rather farm it fast than spend alot of time questing it all (and I have quested it)


its nice to have choices tho

Unfortunately, they removed that as well.

The big benefit of the Factions system was that, while you got no "free" skills (after the first few tutorial quests), the skill trainers were well stocked with pretty much every skill right from the start, and you were given gold as a reward to help you afford them.

Nightfall skill trainers - even when you factor in the extra handfull available from hero trainers - are woefully understocked. And we don't get random freebies from quests. Worst of both worlds, seriously.

Edit: so far, I've spent thousands of Balthazar faction points just so I could access the Nightfall skills I wanted early enough at the traders. This is officially a bad thing (tm). If a player feels obliged to obliquely 'break' your game's design in order to extract enjoyment from it, there's something wrong with your design in the first place...

I've had a paragon i've just made, and i found i skippedo ut a whole load of quests because i really couldn't be bothered doing them, as i'd been doing loads of other quests as well. Sure, they gave me xp, sunspear points etc, but it wasn't worth the tediousness, so i just went to factions did a couple of quests and got the levels.
Skill rewards would give incentive to modify builds, because i don't really have any skill variety anymore, because i don't want to buy loads of skills on the off chance that i may use them, and it's not worth spending the money trying to get all the skills as the cost just racks up far too much

I agree

when I first saw Hero skill trainers I was happy until I realized they only have a limited number of skills to choose from

the Nightfall system is more expensive than Factions

with Factions,
you had more "free" starter skills before you left the starter isle
(if you include Hero skill trainers, its the same)

on mainland, you were given access to much better selection of skills to choose from -- most the skills were available at Kaineng Center

the skill cost was better in Factions
- yes skills cost the same, but Faction Quest rewards offered more exp and cash

with the improved cash you could more readily *choose* what skill you wanted (as opposed to being limited to small selection at Trainer/Hero trainer)

I much prefer the quest rewards involving skills, even if it was only the Istan quests then you would at least be able to get a few builds running. When you are rewarded a skill you are more likely to use it, whne at a skill trader you might have been unsure as to whether it would be worth that precious skill point and probably won't buy it...

I personally really liked the gradual gaining of skills versus the clumping of skills introduced in NF....

after Kamadan and Diggins all the skills traingers on the island had all the same stuff... and with my first character i did ALL the little side quests... well it got really boring not being able to choose more different skills and for sure that was one of the huge benefits of having skill rewards to side quests...

getting a skill as a reward for doing this quest or that quest actually felt like the quest was worth it... it made sence and i cant stress enough that for me it game meaning to all the side quests in Tyria...

the same really does go for how the side quests even handed out items as rewards... and it really would have been a nice little addition if the side quest in NF sincronized wtih your heros and gave out items that where usefull in the developement of your heros...

*NOTE*... alot of people did not realize that in the NF training area you could obtain more FREE skills by talking to all the Skill Experts of your profession...

with the tokens that they give me w/ the quest rewards I buy booze, booze helps you forget about what an idiot you were to do those pointless side-quests.

HA exactly...

but seriousely... why tokens... why not direct rewards for doing the quests...

instead of giving us more trader items to have to stockpile to exchange for items we can already jsut buy strait out... making us have to waste the time of gathering traveling and tradeing them... just give us the items as rewards...

personally, I liked having skill rewards for quests as in Prophecies, and I think a good idea is to have it both ways... so that we can buy the skills we need at the trainer, or we can do quests where we may choose either the usual rewards, or certain skills. That way we feel like we're getting skills for free so we enjoy doing the quests more. Furthermore, on later characters, if we can't be bothered, we can just buy the skills instead of quest for them.

of course, in the end there's really no difference... if you do quests the exp/rewards help you to to get skill points/money for new skills -- in Prophecies, you get skills directly (but you didn't get to choose the skills) as rewards. I don't know why people can't see that it's essentially the same system.

Anyway, I liked the skills as rewards as it has more "flavor" RPG-wise.

i completely agree with the OP. i rarely find myself doing side quests unless absolutely necessary, and for the average guild wars player, 1k per skill adds up way too quickly. It prevents players from experimenting with new skills, and has forced me to revert to doing what a i hate most...farming.

If you are on a Survivor Title track quests are a way to get quick and easy (usually) XP. There is no reason to gather up XP unless you want a ton of skill points in the bank.

Having pre-set skill rewards will make most starting builds too similar and favors some profession attributes over others, like the sword/axe/fire favoritism in Prophecies. And I still see people around who don't know that NF also introduced the Hero skill point system that allows for more free skills to be learned by both you and your heroes.

I've never really understood this. If I was a poor player (especially new players) getting the gold is harder than ever. Why would you want those players to grind for hours on end just to get some skills to be competative.

I never understood why we couldn't have it both ways. If we want to do the quest for the skill let us do the quest. If we want to unlock it with balth faction then pay 1k for it then so be it.

I don't see the harm in letting us do both.

there is actually quite a big difference... as stated what really is the benefit of doing side quests after reaching max level... those stupid tokens that are haned out 1 at a time arent worth it and the xp on top of it doesnt mater anymroe at that point...

for me it really isnt about getting FREE skills, its about being rewarded in a fashion that for the most part is always beneficial no mater what level you are or what profession you play...

and yes i always agreed on both ways... just like prophacies was... the skill rewards were a perk and DID give incentive for doing the side quests... then again you didn't reach max level in prophacies till darn near end game anyways... now with the super fast level progression in both factions and nightfall compared to the amount of quests their are... i just feel like they are a waste of time... but i for sure would be interested in doing them to unlock skillls that i wouldnt have considered buying... it really does open skills up for people to actually experiment with...

NF came off to me as really bland when u get right down to it... so many quests on the begining island no skill rewards and the trainers pretty much had all the same limited skills.. even the hero trainers.. for the amount of time the begining island does take to gather sunspear comlpete the quests and reach level 20 i was running the same build with the same bland beginning skills for a long time... there wasn't enough diversity in skills... i had hoped they would reintroduce the skill rewards with chapter 3... but they didnt...

When I started (in Prophecies), my first character was a Hydromancer. My second was a hammer warrior.

...is it any wonder I preach the Factions system wherever I go?
The hero-point system has some serious flaws, though. The selection for each class is (as I mentioned) abominable, the game is poor at keeping track both of how many points you have left and which skills you've already unlocked, and it's a catch-22 for new players who need unlocks for their heroes as well as for themselves. But yeah, it's also badly advertised.
If every skill is available from the very first trainer, new players only need to "grind" seven skills (free capsig, nyah!).

...Of course, in practice you'll want some extras for experimentation and specific missions. But then in practice you also get at least five free skills from the game itself, at least three of which are keepers for every class. So we'll say ten skills to "grind", tops, as long as you know to ask for advice when starting out. These skills will generally be at less than full price, of course, since they're your first ten.

The Factions system was only bad for completists who wanted dozens of skills unlocked on the one character. It was great for both new characters who just wanted to get into the game, and for experienced players who only really wanted to cherry-pick a couple of skills from the list.

agree

I liked the Factions skill system best for starting chars or lvl 20s

I dont want to do the same quest 4+ times to get a skill for 4+ characters

I've been complaining about this since they decided to change it in Factions. I don't see how making us buy skills makes us more diverse than having skills rewarded - I will make all of may chars I can in Prophecies because of this. Of course you can't do that with Derv's and Paragons, so... I guess I'll have to research these skills and see what I want to buy. So much less fun than trying out a new rewarded skill. Oh well - I think it will never change now.