Access to Unlocked Skills in PvE

This really isn't your traditional RPG and it shouldn't be about grind for skills.I really hate thinking that I have to go all the way to the Maguuma Jungle which is pretty dead to do missions to get skill points as if I have done it a 12 times already.I would prefer to grab all my skills in Ascalon and be on my merry way to Sanctum Cay to Ascend to get the rest of my attribute points.When you unlock skills it is aviable on your account and don't forget this isn't you average RPG.

Not really, how does training to be an artist compare to being a lawyer? Then a doctor? You should be paying for the school its necessary for specific reasons. Just because you have a PhD in Philosophy does not make it good for you to be handling peoples lives like a doctor.

Why should the Warrior have all the skills you gained previously as an elementalist? Granted few are used competitively yet it is unfair. You cannot implement something to this degree in a game like this where it isn't even exactly skill its determination. The amount of time it took you to make these posts you could have farmed like 100k and about 20 skill points. Why complain when these things are easily accessible? The skill trainer never says "no", it doesnt happen only once a week, gaining skill points is ridiculously easy.

The argument here is that you want things "unlocked" for all your PvE characters after you done it the first time. The reason this probably isn't even in sardelac is because they have too much junk like this over there.

Why should my pre searing ele have all the fire elites possible? Along with meteor shower etc etc, which are skills that are "more powerful" then most.

You have no debate if you bring in balance and you have no debate if you bring in profession swapping. This is guildwars, a Co-RPG, that is designed on skill theoretically, yet that skill needs to be developed first. Development of the game entirely starts with PvE. Flavor wise it makes more then enough sense that per character your skills are unlocked. In PvP where the original usage of PvP characters were built for a specific purpose was made account based so if you decided to use faction you can use it again. PvE is the grind of guildwars, if you don't want to grind pvp.

This is why I sometimes loathe discussing anything on forums, because people like you make these wild exagerations and bring them up as though they're legitimate points.


And that's exactly why people like me don't find it fun and here to make suggestions about it. As I said in the GuildHall forums, PVE will never improve because the majority of players who play it like grind way too much because it's easy and it's something that they can achieve and still call an "accomplishment" because it requires a lot of time. I said it more bluntly but it still applies.

Agree. But the strength of a skill is also in its synergy with other skills.
Dismember + Executioners Chop is good.
Eviscerate + Executioners Chop is better.

Even at axe mastery of zero.

its a natural progression.
Even at low levels, evis is better than dismember. eviscerate is at the end of prophecies.

Agreed.

But being a veteran player has nothing to do with having a veteran character.

I have my main account and a second account.
My second account is barely unlocked.
Its gonna be a while before that second account is up and running on par with my first.

I know how to play this game, i know how the skills work, i know the missions, i know the monsters, i know how to play my classes.
Do you think it would be fair if i demanded to have access to all the skills that I know in my head, even though this new account is very new?
I know it already, i dont need any more tutorials of training, why cant they just give me everything since i know it already?

Thats kind of absurd, since the accounts are not linked, but the principle remains the same.
I know it already. I dont need to re-learn it.

We're talking about beating each campaign once, twice, three, four, maybe five or more times, and having purchased or captured the same skills several times over... and then wanting to start a new PvE character, either of a new primary or a previously played one, and being loathe to go through that entire skill acquisition process yet once again.

Recently, I had the cool idea of starting a new character in Prophecies and playing through all three campaigns sequentially to experience the whole story as one continuity, but then remembered how long it would take to acquire all of the already unlocked skills I've grown accustomed to using on my five other characters, and how much gold it would cost, and so gave up on the idea.

Heroes have really complicated this, to be honest, regarding both skills and gold. Before heroes came along, I used to just buy/capture the skills my character needed. Now each of my characters has every secondary unlocked, and I've run all over the place purchasing and capturing skills for hero builds, even if my characters themselves don't use or need them.

I find myself frequently micro-managing which characters I should use to unlock which skills with, based upon which one might actually use the skill at some point, and how feasible it will be or how long it will take to get a character to that area. And talk about a gold sink... taking care of almost 70 heroes across 5 characters gets expensive if one unlocks all the skills they need, and invests in the runes and max equipment to make them really worthwhile. There's just not as much gold to go around as there was before heroes, and hero skill points and trainers only help so much. Some don't care about spending anything on their heroes, but I treat mine like characters.

And as far as the whole game balance argument goes, it's kinda silly how once a new character gets to Lion's Arch and then Kamadan and Kaineng City, one can have seven heroes with access to just about every skill in the game, but the character itself is stuck with the handful of skills available for purchase or acquired through skill quests up to that point. I understand why it's setup that way, but it doesn't make it fun.

And about account vs character access... all of my characters share storage, materials and gold with each other; my heroes share skills and can share equipment if necessary (wish that was an easier process too); and anything unlocked in PvE is instantly available to all of my PvP characters. It just feels like the separation of skill unlocks amongst PvE characters is something of an arbitrary thing that isn't really necessary. If we paid a monthly fee, I could see why they'd want us to keep doing the same things over and over again - but in the absence of one, it isn't really necessary. I bet if they unlocked them, most of the people complaining about it would actually dig it in practice, and play PvE more because of it.

In any event, Hard Mode sure would be fun with a fully decked out character from the very beginning... kinda like in Marvel Ultimate Alliance, where one can take their uber characters who have finished the game, with all of their unlocked heroes and equipment, and play through the whole game again. That's really fun.

I hear this a lot. So why not just get rid of level's, money, and the need to buy weapons, armor, runes, etc. Also, give all players all skills (including elites) and hero's when they create their characters. This should put everyone on the same playing field, remove any grind, and (in my opinion) make for a very boring game. But hey, it would truly be a game that has no grind where player skill > time spent.

Dude, if your that pessimistic play Tetris. There is your skill without grind. GG

Ya but thats not an RPG -.o

And youre talking about the same character going through the game and beating it as a stronger character. You can do this already. Just zone back to the first mission...do it as a lvl 20.

What we're talking about a brand new character having access to all things as if it was a fully developed character. Which it isn't.

Dude, do you have any actual points other than idiotic hyperbole?

Hmm... I've played MUA a lot, and it's just as much, if not more, of an RPG than Guild Wars is. The dialogue options are certainly deeper. GW isn't really an RPG either, if we want to be pedantic about it. It's about as deep of an RPG as Dungeon Siege.

Actually no... in MUA one can choose to play the second run though with a different hero character and an entirely new group, but with everything that was unlocked and acquired through the first time available from the beginning. One still has to develop the new characters, at least if everything was set to manual the first the time through rather than auto-levelling, and unlock things that weren't unlocked the first time through. It's not like everything is handed to the player on a silver surfboard.

When I first read that one could do this in MUA, I thought, "what's the point in playing through again with uber characters?" But once I tried it, it became apparent what the point was... it was a blast. Thinking about it honestly, if I'd been forced to start over completely from scratch, I'd probably not have played through again, and missed out on all of the cool heroes and stuff I didn't do the first time through.

I guess that could be a workaround, if I lowered my attributes to something more comparable to the level I'd be in that area. Hadn't really thought about that before. Would miss the quests and progression of the storyline however.

But still, it would be more fun to start a new Mes/Ele character in pre-searing and have all of the skills I've unlocked over the last two years available right away, especially the water and earth magic line, as it takes a very long time to get to those.

I'm not asking for the game to be played for me, with every map point, item and skill that I've not previously acquired open from the get go. I'm just asking for an easier way to access the 1424 skills across all three campaigns other than spending 1.4 million gold x the number of characters one has, especially since I've already done all the work for that at least once before.

Anyway, I think making unlocked skills more readily available would help make the PvE side of things more enjoyable and fun. From my perspective as a PvE player, it wouldn't hurt anything in practical application; most of the theories about how it would ruin gameplay, balance, the economy and the RPGness of things are simply that, theories. And there's no shortage of things for one to sink gold into.

Levels are the only true character progression existing, you'd have the entire PvE whinebase jumping you on that one. Probably moreso than I have regarding skills.

Gold/Money is useless already outside of skill acquisition. Getting a 19% vs a 20%, is only such a huge difference because of a half-retarded playerbase.

Weapons, Armor, Runes, etc are also pretty much useless. I can go through prophecies with starter items (including armor) and never buy a rune. They are only there to aid those that need character development and to feel 'special'.

It's not a grind when you acquire the skill the first time, that's just simply the game. Having to re-acquire that skill even when you choose to play a new character with the same primary, creates a huge rift in the game where skill acquisition becomes a grind.

Realism, aka (Why should my fireman be able to draw like an artist?) is the most rediculous thing, especially when it comes to GW. It's a fantasy game, fantasy....game. Make it fun to play, not a chore. Go plant a garden if you need grind. Go to work and do w/e you do there, you get paid for the work there. Video games should be fun, you know.. not work. I didn't pay money so I could work for an ingame reward. I paid for a game so that I could enjoy myself.

You guys are so funny. Most of you think the only idea here is to give everyone all unlocked skills right off the bat. Why not tell my why when you ascend, you shouldn't get access to your unlocked skills? Granted, the first good bit of the game would still be tremendously boring, but not unplayable if you know it wouldn't take too long to get USA (unlocked skill access).

Double unlock is a little redundant, although it might anti-grind for some WoWers, I still support this.

/signed

What RPG has just given everything to you? It doesnt sound like role-playing to me whatsoever. I understand the "entertainment" factor yet I know I would have stopped playing PvE personally if whenever I made a character and decided to blow up pre-searing myself. There is this progression and grind, and it is gonna happen no matter what RPG you play. It's the style of the game, even action adventure games you progressively gain more abilities etc etc. Lyra had a decent analogy on the two accounts. One account is fully unlocked I guess he can email Anet and get everything unlocked again on the other. The professions about life I think make alot of sense (besides the fact I brought it up).

You could have been the one to crack down Enron in the court of law, yet if someone is bleeding and only has minutes to live you have no chance in hell to save the person. So why should my warrior have all the skills in the entire game then all of a sudden transplant that to an elementalist in presearing? Oh yea because "I did most of it already" well in my opinion no you haven't. You played the game as a warrior not an elementalist, you have probably had a different role in groups, used different skills, completed different sub-quests, and probably got accepted or kicked a bit more for your profession. It does not matter if you got the skills as a secondary because the secondary is optional for your character to begin with. Nobody even said anything close to this when Prophecies was only out, so since there are 3 campaigns I guess you just wanna play the game 3 times then have everything in PvE handed to you? Farm the gold, farm the skill points all of this is 24/7 accessible. You don't need to wait for a weekend event, or any ohter restriction. The skill trainer in droks isn't going to shut you down, and its not like trolls dont spawn anymore.

And of course I only have Idiotic Hyperboles only, this whole thread is a ridiculous complaint along the lines of "Mommy give me!"

In a game where you can reach the maximum level in a few hours?

Perhaps acquiring skills should be level based then?

Other skill systems are based on skill trees and skill points. If you go down a certain branch of the skill tree, you wont have points for the other skills.

Ive already found Guild Wars to have the least restrictive skill system around. Our only restriction is money and skill points (which ive pointed out ideas of reducing said cost).

"I want this skill, that skill, that skill." Just buy it. If you dont have a skill unlocked, jump into PvP, make 1000 balth points to unlock it, and then you can buy it anywhere.

If you really want to split hairs, you should be mad that we have a class system in the first place. Since this restricts what skills your character can use to just 2 professions.

I dont know about being useless.

Developing a proper character with the correct armor setup and rune setup for specific builds is a big part of developing a character for specific uses.

Say you want to make a Minion master. Well...basic MM skills are easy to get. The real trouble is getting Minion master armor and weaponry.

This is supposed to be half the fun. Building and making your character as you see fit.

If you find it annoying and a drag to actually build up a character...then maybe this type of gameplay is not your style.

But this skill acquisition is still for a NEW character.

Its starting over from scratch. Warrior A does not equal Warrior B.

Perhaps a system where you could kill Warrior A, and ressurect him as Warrior B? So you could re-roll a PvE character, granted that they start in the same continent, but only if the previous character is fully developed. Now that would be interesting.

Its not a matter of realism. Its simple logic. Theres no logic in expecting person A to have the same skills person B, especially since person A didn't go to the same vocational school.

Yes it is a GAME.

Games have set RULES. Rules are part of the game and they structure the gameplay so it is an actual game, not just goofing around with a ball without any purpose.

1. You cant go offsides
2. You can only have 5 players on the ice
3. You cant step over this line
4. You can only move 1 space at a time
5. You can only have one of each number in a row
6. No clinching, no headbutting, no biting, no punching below the waist
7. The game ends at checkmate
8. Killing the ghostly hero gives you a morale boost

Name me one game (sports, board game, video games) that has no set rules?

Your idea is in violation of a very basic rule of character progression in RPGs.

The less and less rules you have, the less of a game it becomes.

No. The idea is for new characters to have access to unlocked skills.

Ascension is completely arbitrary and occurs in different equivalences in the 3 games.

You don't have access to those skills because that character never learned it. Simple as that.
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On a side note, even "Non-games" like Second Life, have rules and restrictions. And things in Second Life require REAL money

Is Lyra suggesting no professions at all? Will the best build of all time... the echo mending wammo finally no longer be a dream?

Good post Lyra.

duh! You should just use Ebay (or any one of the other gold selling site). I have been saying that this whole thread. Once you realize that ebaying gold is the only way one can enjoy this game then you will be better off.

Agreed, good post lyra_song and Shmanka.

Skill acquiring is a money sink take it or leave it...
It's amazing how lazy the community has become.
"I want my skills as soon as possible and i want them for free" #whine & #care

QFT

Anet give in on a sooner acquisition of skills and still it's not enough.
If you can't take the time to gather the needed funds and skillpoints to buy your skill then don't even bother playing the game, and make a macro that does it for you instead.

/rant

Sounds like the players who actually want this just want to make farming characters because they saw a build on the internet and that isn't their main character.

So they want to make a new PvE character, get the skills with their older character, and have the skills available for the new character - for free.

The better posts in this thread haven't said "make skill acquisition automatic" or "make skill acquisition free" - they have said, "I would like an alternative to spending all my gold on skills, especially skills I have already paid for elsewhere" and in several cases proposed them.

If you are so convinced that skills must cost gold, do you want to get rid of skill quests in Prophecies? And if skill quests in Prophecies are acceptable, haven't you already admitted that some form of skill acquisition other than paying through the nose at a skill trainer is acceptable?

I keep reading a few things that strike me as contradictory.

1. the argument about the casual gamer. since the casual gamer is more or less defined as "someone who is not posting on this forum," bringing up the casual gamer is just an attempt to channel your own views through a third party that, by definition, can't be refuted.

2. the argument about the casual gamer seems to be that casual gamers don't need that many skills. I don't know why casual gamers don't need that many skills, but it seems to mesh oddly with the argument that

3. if you want skills just go farm for the gold, farming is so easy and fast and pshaw, any decent player can make 20k in under an hour.

It seems like only the extremes are being represented; you have on one side

(a) a casual gamer who only needs 15 skills and is perfectly content to play with them, and maybe buy another one every week or so, who knows, maybe after a year they will have fifty skills, woo hoo!

and on the other

(b) uber leet gamer who can buy skills by the dozen in between buying spare sets of FoW armor so he can have one black one and one white one.

but nothing in between.

There should be a solution for people who like to play, are willing to play and go to some effort to acquire skills, but can't make money at the rapid rate of a very experienced farmer.

well why not

a) once you ascended you don't just auto unlock all skills put in a NEW quest maybe called Inner focus/skill where after beating it you can get all skills you have previously unlocked but for 10g! instead of 1k platinum skills you haven't unlocked still cost 1k platinum, of course elite skills still must be payed with signet of capture so that will still cost 1k platinum.

b)Make an item, quest item for late game where its like
Factions: talk to X in imperial sanctum beat the quest and get a gem this gem when in inventory lets you buy all skills previously unlocked for 10g/100g/400g whatever.
Nightfall: X in Kodash baazar since nightfall hurries you through ascension and stuff, do the quest get the gem
prophecies: Abbadons gate do the above get the gem

Gems are transferable and usable by all characters, so just give it to a char and let you pass this is proof that you've beaten the higher areas and deserve to unlock your skills

c) Change quests rewards to include more skills its not hard just make it at end of quest you get a skill bingo bango its no longer grind due thousands of quests to get the money to buy skills.