ease PvP access... (without UAX) :)

this is a post i made in a different forum already, but since that forum seemed rather deserted, i decided to try again and post it in a more lively forum.

this idea adresses the following problem:

you have a team (guild team or pug, doesn't matter), you want to do pvp and you want to do it right. meaning, you are spending time to think about a build, improving it after a fail...
now you have some people with full unlocks, but you also have some teammates who are quite new to the game, spent some time in pve, but are missing skills - effectively preventing all your "teambuild plans" from succeeding.

what we need is a possibility to help other players to adjust their build and be useful in a pvp team even while learning.

i hate seeing dialogues like:
: hi, can you play axe warrior?
: sure.
: do you have eviscerate?
: wait a sec...
: no, sry.
: hm, we also need a migraine mesmer...
: cool, i have migraine.
: ok, go 15 illusion and...
: i only have minor illusion rune.
: umm sorry... see you.

what was that about "skill over time spent"?

let's list two solutions to the above problem along with their downsides:

flames of balthazar:
would effectively counter the problem for guildmates or friends. for pugs it would probably only solve the problem if the new player is rich enough to buy the flames.
another reason for anet to not re-introduce the flames would be that - with all the online trading of ingame money or even accounts - flames would create a new means to get fully unlocked accounts in no time and thus become ebay material.

uax:
although i'd still love to see this solution, i have no hope that anet will go this way. this has been discussed to death. although i enjoy using the term uax in any post i make

and here comes a new idea:
lending skill and item unlocks to other players:

to give a skill or item unlock to another player for a limited time you would have to have it unlocked yourself of course. additionally your faction (including your faction cap) would be lowered by 1000.
so if you have 5470/10000 faction, you could lend another player 5 skill or item unlocks and then have 470/5000 faction.
imho, lending an unlock should not disable it for the player who gives it... making it possible to give someone else the same build you are playing.

to recall the loan you'd need a menu with all the unlocks anyone borrowed from you. you'd be able to recall it anytime, but if the player was in a pvp match at the time he would only lose the unlock after the match, and only then you would get back your faction and cap.
if necessary, anet could also set a time limit on borrowed unlocks, like 24 hours, to prevent dead accounts to still have unlocks for others.

to redeem the loan you'd need a menu with all the unlocks you borrowed. just select one, hit a button and you lose the unlock again, returning faction and cap to the creditor. this should only be possible in areas where you can manage your skillbar.

i think this solution would be possible because we already know from a bug and from buddy codes that unlocks don't have to stay forever

it might sound a bit complicated, but it should be quite intuitive, once in action... and i really tried to combine the advantages that UAX would bring, but still keep the incentive to unlock stuff - because it seems like ANet wants to keep the unlocking.

any comments?

If the flames were introduced, I'd expect them to be overfarmed and have their price crash, then become very hard to actually buy from players because they aren't worth keeping to sell.

Giving free UAX would help everyone, and would also give new players full use of their heroes right away. But it would make the skill hunter title buyable because of the tomes.

The loan idea sounds interesting, but I have another idea. When in PvP, you are free to use any skills/items that are unlocked by any member of your party. If someone leaves your party in the outpost then any items you no longer get to use are deleted, but if they leave in match then you keep them till you return to an outpost.

As I don't PvP, I don't feel I have the standing to sign or unsign this idea.

Didn't bother reading it. Earn the unlocks and/or faction, that is all.

Or buy the PvP only version of GW/profession unlock packs. Otherwise, play the game.

Sounds like a very generous idea.
But you can a lot of skills unlocked via PvE and same with the runes.
I do understand the skill and rune part. I have been kicked before in PvP just because I didn't have eviscerate at the time.
So I do understand getting the Balthazar faction for the runes and the elite skills, and the skills in general can be time consuming.
But I don't think many people are going to say yes.

Gimme: if you don't bother reading, don't bother posting... that's all. thx.

this is not changing anything in the way ppl have to earn their unlocks. this is just a method that allows players to help others get a start in pvp.

if you'd read my post, you would know that.

oh, and bilateral...

i like your boiled down version, but i guess even more people would whine about everyone having to "earn their unlocks".

my version still requires players to "pay" for the unlocks, so i thought it might be more acceptable for those "work for the game" people.

looks like they don't even bother reading the idea before making stupid comments though...

everyone: i really like to hear comments on this, but you should maybe read at least the first post on a thread. thanks.

there is actually a rather simple solution.
Keep at least 7k faction ALL time.
if people expend all their faction everytime they get some that's their problem. But smart people should not be lower than 6k faction, that way you can affort many minor things you dont have and you need for a moment, if things go well you will recover all you used for that day on the event, if dont you just need to go ra to farm some more faction to have 7k again.

The point is to not force new players to grind for 600+ hours just to get to a point where they can be competitive. Anet has already shown that they don't care about this though.

Because Skill Hunter isn't buyable now, right?

This is somewhat off topic, but if someone actually kicked you for that... they're terrible. The difference between 14 and 15 generally isn't enough to matter, and good player use all minors anyway.

Can Torunament Token be traded and/or refund?

Make them tradeable and refundable.
Problem solved.

hm... maybe my example was not the best ... but i guess ppl get the point.

although this might be a solution, it would probably have the same problems as flames of balthazar. and since anet removed flames of balthazar from the game, i think they would probably not turn tournament tokens into something very similar

I prefer bilateralrope's idea better, its simpiler, and could be used in pvp only environments. As a pve player mainly I only have 1 slot for pvp, and i have to delete and remake it if i want to change to a different profession, this is not a major issue for me, btu it would be nicer if i could bring along my pve character instead and have the ability to use unlocked skills when in team, that the others have unlocked,

I don't tliek the idea of another person having to pay balthazar faction to temporarily let me use a skill I don't have and obviously if I had Balthazaar then while it would be usefull on my pvp charactr its useless on my pve as it doesnt let me use the skill.

I have only got 100 skills left to unlock at this time, so its not as if I havent earned my balth and unlocked, but obviously to unlock on a PVE character this is hugely expensive and time consuming, only my mesmer has fully ulocked all her mesmer skills, but is no where near unlocking all the other profesions, and myother characters havent even unlocked all their own, It would cost many milllions in gold to unlock everythign on every character you use in pve.

Therefore this suggestion is

/unsigned

but bilateralrope's is /signed

meh theres nothing wrong with the unlock system, and the "skill over time" argument is seriously flawed - How about twhen you buy the game you get max items, all skins, all skills, all place unlocked and every title?

And they didnt remove flames of balth me thinks, HoH still sucks but meh

Just give you a flame everytime you get a Glad point or something (as RA and TA are basically faction farms anyway)

There's an idea, flames as AT rewards... that would still keep their numbers down because only so many people can actually *win* tournies...

I agree with Halbarad Wolfson. Although it doesn't really matter to people who PvE, something like this does matter to people who want to create a competitive GvG guild. One of the main problems I've always came across in trying to create a GvG guild is coming up with a neat build, wanting to try it out and no one is able to run my build, or even worst having to wait up to an hour for a person to win a few matches in Random Arenas so they can get 1k faction to buy a skill, it is frustrating. Sure you can have the build handed out to everyone so they can go get the skills but things always change or when you plan to get together people may not show up. I would love for them to unlock everything for PvP players since they said that's what they're going to do for stuctured PvP in GW2 but this will probably cause friction with people who have already purchased pvp packs. I think either the option that Halbarad has came up with (As long as you get a refund on your faction cap when you cancel the loan) or the reappearance of the Zaishen Medallion system with Flames of Bathazar would suffice.

In other words a definite /SIGN on this one!!! ^^

- I'd also would like to add the idea of using faction as well to recruit guild members or to send guest invites, because not everybody farms gold, alot of players that PvP do that soley and it's very rare that they have alot of gold on them and since guilds are also made to compete against other guilds in a PvP sort of fashion this just makes sense. For the most part if you wanted to create a competitive GvG guild without having to play storymode to get anything is basically what I'm trying to get at here, faction should be transferrable into gold and vice versa.

"Let PvP and PvE players join hands,
and stand on the shores of the Zaishen lands,
and sing and dance till merriment's spent,
and gold and faction are Heaven sent"

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not too keen on the idea that ANet makes the game easy on everyone.

You're going to have to do a bit of work to have fun. Such is the fate of online games. Luckily for us, getting faction is a VERY easy tast and can be accumulated easily.

Or if you want to, choose a profession to specialize in. I choose Mesmer every chance I get for GvG, HoH, etc, because it's my most comfortable class. If you do this, you can unlock every skill and rune for the particular profession and play it when you get the chance.

Also, I agree that you should ALWAYS, at the minimum have at least 7k faction at all times. What I am usually able to do is use it to buy an elite or run or what have you, play some rounds of GvG, and come out with more than what I put in.

obviously i would sign bilateralrope's idea too, because of its simplicity. i only fear that even more people would cry and say:
which might apply for pve... pve in online games always has to do with grind, sad but true. but it certainly doesn't apply for serious pvp games, which guild wars is trying to be, judging by all the tournaments.

this is not about making the game easier.

the challenge in pvp is not gaining faction and unlocking stuff. that's easy - it just takes an unnecessary amount of time.
the challenge in pvp is strategy and tactics as well as battlefield awareness, reactions and micromanagement. i don't see how my suggestion (or bilateralrope's) would make that easier.

this suggestion is about making it easier to get to play the game.

well if you dont have the skills, doesnt matter how much time you got. arent sup mesmer runes 100g?

In theory its a great idea, but when you implement this, suddenly everyone with pvp-player friends is UAX and the regular people or newcomers to the scene are still left in the dust.

Anyone playing from the beginning can see that they have made leaps and bounds in skill aquisition... time spent getting XP for refund points anyone?

No, the pvp system doesnt need any more easy access than it already has. There

i bet many people would gladly help out newcomers who join their teams in HA or wherever.
i know i would... because i rather have a pvp newbie with me who actually listens, than some fully unlocked idiot who thinks he knows everything and ignores team communication.

so i bet newcomers would not be "left in the dust". since lending an unlock would be a matter of seconds.

of course anet has made progress in the right direction since starting with this pointless unlock system. but that doesn't mean that nothing can be done anymore.

maybe you don't need easier pvp access, but some ppl do. as for myself, i am fully unlocked. but when i play with others, i want them to be able to join me on an equal level concerning builds.

i would like to add, that keeping some K balth faction with you is also not really a valid solution.

people might very well have to switch builds between gvg matches.

plus, requiring them to always have around 6k balth faction would take their freedom to just try a completely different build when they for example play RA. they could always just change some skills or items.

hmm... people on this forum seem to be quite focused on PvE topics

since it's been several months, i allowed myself a little bump on this topic

stfu ---------

ORRRR.

stop being so RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing lazy and just DO some pvp to earn the PVP unlocks (bf)

ORRRR.

stop being so RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing lazy and just DO some pvp to earn the PVP unlocks (bf)

See when you're done being lazy, can you remove that double post? I love how it works both ways.

How much easier can you possibly make it for PvP characters. They already get any skill they unlocked permanantly availabe to any character they make accross the entire account, primary or secondary, they can buy PvP unlock packs which unlock ALL SKILLS across their entire account for whatever campaign they bought it for, what more do you want.

I actually play about 50/50 pve and pvp, and the only thing I would like is an easier way for pve chars get skills to use in pvp because if you have spent time it takes to develop pve character you should really be able to use them in any situation for GvG or HA as long as you have the skill unlocked. The tomes have been somewhat helpful for that but not completely as they are extremely rare. If you think making a pvp character is hard, try making a pve character.

I would like to see something like a signet that you could use to capture elite or nonelite skills for other pve characters on your account from bosses in hard mode, that would be cool. Basically you kill an ele boss in hard mode and use this signet to gain something like an elite ele tome that could not be traded or sold, but be put in your storage and used to learn an elite ele skill for another character on your account. Hence if you have an ele that is still in factions and you wanted to learn an ele elite from the end of NF you could kill the boss in hard mode with a character that has been through NF and get the skill for your ele.

Because these things could not be sold or traded you wont have the people crying about people being able to buy the elite skill hunter title. Lol, elite skill hunter, who really cares anyway. Seriously, not to be rude but what kind of a person wastes a tremendous amount of time getting experience and skill points, then ontop of that wastes all of that along with a alot of gold getting a bunch of skills of which 75% of them will probably be of no use to the character at all. The vast majority of them would be from secondary professions, not to say that all secondary elites are useless, but its at the most a few that will ever be of any use at all.

The thread title seems to be really "deceptive", but read carefully...

It says "ease PVP access" not "ease PVP"

It seems like only those players are willing to post (or troll, or wander from the subject), who don't realize what PVP is about. PVP is about skill, not about how much you pimp your character or account.

Why don't PVP players want to farm for faction/exp/unlocks/anything? Because they have other things to achieve. They want to play exciting matches, and a match is only really a competitive challenge when there is a level playing field right from the start.

How many buildings/units do you have to unlock in Starcraft? None? OMG it's all available right from the start when you play PVP matches! No challenge here... too easy!!!

Oh and Counterstrike... You gotta earn money to buy weapons there, hah! But wait... Everyone starts with the same weapon and the same amount of money EACH ROUND? WTF!

FIFA... Warcraft 3... Super Mario Smash Bros... Quake...

Throughout most games that have a professional e-sports scene, there are no account-based or character-based unlocks. The only things you can get to boost your performance are powerups that you have to collect during the match and are gone after it.

There are reasons for this. Believe it or not.

All those games you talk about, are client-saved and can be played offline or in small lan.

Here your achievements are saved server-side.