the pits

The newest patch notes should read, "Removed the last vestiges of casual play from Guild Wars. Added a money sink for the platinum we've made it impossible for you to get. Created skills exclusively for people who play 24/7 (they deserve to own everything). Increased market costs of skill tomes even farther beyond reason by creating another use for long-to-acquire skill points. Made more build types [armor tanks] close to useless. Added more grind, grind, grind."

Please don't refute argue or discuss away from topic. Just state your dissent if you are part of the silent group who have really bad tastes left in your mouths with the Guild Wars has gone to cater to the vocal life-devoting power gamers. I know I'm not alone. I'm asking for like-minded individuals to join me in raising our voice to try to bring things back within reason.

The game, should it return to original style, eliminate titles for anything that isn't cosmetic. It should reduce gold sinks for anything but vanity and work to eliminate grind and restore casual play to the game and stop turning the game's primary target audience away from it. PvE-only skills that you add to your skill bar yourself simply should not exist. (Those such as Celestial Skills and the trap disarm are acceptable; they are granted as part of a mission.) Skills whose power are related to a title rank are pure grind-fests without question (especially when they're basically required to be powered up for normal game content at the end of chapters.) Titles were meant to be something people who play a lot could show off -- but somewhere along the line someone got the wrong idea about them and started giving them privilege.

Guild Wars is supposed to be game where everything is meant to be accessible to everyone based on skill and independent of time involved. The whole design concept for the game revolved around that -- quickly-made PvP characters (originally with pre-made builds), no monthly fees, a fair and reasonable play time with replayability through multiple characters...

And here I had thought the separation of Fun Mode and Hard Mode was a step back in that direction, that they'd realized they'd strayed too far.

You get sunspear just going through NF, how is that not casual? O.o Not like you need r10 title just to use the skills. >_>

Grind is the only endgame ANet can provide.

Also keep in mind: The new skills aren't requied, you'll be just fine (and probably have more fun) without them. The people who need them the most are the HM people - and they don't care because Vanquishing is a huge grind in itself.

And damn, this is a forum. Asking people not to discuss is like asking people not to breath. Also keep in mind the forum is called "Riverside Inn: General Game Discussion".

oh for god sakes delete this post lol....this cant be a serious thread. old school style play is still in the game....anything above which is what requires anything extra. skill tomes...uu yeah those were never in the original game....even titles....and skill balances are a way of life in GW.

Its less a post and more a hissy fit.
I say add some decent lightbringer skills to go with the ones we now have.

Despite what some of you may think, this is a serious thread, and it brings to light things that were undermined for so long.

Myself, who even gets more play-time than the OP, still finds everything overwhelming lately. The very end of Nightfall is a good example. No one should need use of skills, which through boring grind and a "Look at me" title, that makes things easier. We should not need to waste our collective time grinding for some title, just to progress without frustration.

In the past, I used to truly look at GW as a source of fun. But, since Factions and then Nightfall, only frustration and a sense of loss replaced it. Before, I jumped at any chance to play, but now I feel reluctance at times.

If you're reluctant to play, why do it? If you don't like GW anymore, I suppose you have a right to your opinion... but it is not some overbearing issue that everyone needs to hear about.

If they made an armor that cost 400 ecto per part, would that ruin the game? No, right? Because have it or not, it doesn't really affect your gameplay, right?
These skills make it slightly easier to demolish PvE. It's like we've been using cannons to destroy a raft, and now they gave us laser-guided canons.
YOU DO NOT NEED THESE SKILLS.

No, you do not need these skills, but the "pro" pve'rs WILL REQUIRE you to have them strong enough in order to join their super-leet group. More discrimination.

They need to add your total kurzick/luxon faction to your title. I spent 90K kurzick faction to amber, if I'd spent the same amount today, I would get 90k towards my title. They should do a retroactive update, like they did 2 years ago with the 20k xp per level -> 15k xp per level, and giving you all the extra skill points you would've gained otherwise.

People got along fine (in Soft and Hard Mode both) without these new skills.

Why are they all of a sudden required?

i played through NF without grinding for sunspear/lightbringer points and i did it just fine. after that who i spent time and grinded out points for vanity

Agreed. You can beat NF, Factions, and Prophecies WITHOUT these skills.
If some player wants to demand a R10 SS player with these skills, well..I guess they can stand around for a while or not play with anyone.

and side note.

close this thread,please. There are few threads opened already for the new skill discussion.

Faer knows the scaw.

Guild Wars still is for casual gamers. The game doesn't force you to get those skills in order for you play through it. All those skills are just extras - things you can work towards once you've passed the game. There is absolutely no need to get those skills or title ranks to pass the games.

Think of them as similar to 15k armor or titles. People who want to can grind for them, but they are only there as an extra.

Except there are no comparable skills elsewhere in the game; there is no non-vanity version of them.

A reasonable almost compromise for now would be to allow the skills to be equipped ONLY in hard mode. And to make them all elite (which they have the power of).

Good to see you're keeping an open mind and topic!

Anyways, back to the point at hand.

Sunspear Skills
-You need a certain Rank in this to continue in Nightfall (assuming you were made there), and it is painfully easy to simply gain said points by playing through the game. Hard Mode just makes it that much easier.

Besides, no one said you NEED to max out the title to use the new skills. Yes, they're more effective at higher levels, but they're still very nice even at the basic level.

Making them elites and/or restricting them to Hard Mode would defeat the purpose. They weren't added to be "more" profession elite skills. These are PvE Only skills, that extra "oomph" that many persons have been asking for, for a while.

You'll remember that the "Skill over Time Spent" motto of ANet's applies to PvP only.

If you recall, the original intention of Guild Wars PvE was to be a "pre-searing" so-to-speak for PvP. Players can unlock skills, test them out and have a fun storyline while they're at it. The "endgame" option from that point was to switch to PvP (which is also why PvP affecting PvE in terms of skill balances wasn't originally too bad of a thing.)

This changed with the addition of Elite Areas and places like DoA. Instead of players crossing over into PvP, you now have them having alternatives and incentives to stay in PvE. This, as one would expect, attracted more of a PvE-only mindset of players. More and more persons had a vested interest with their PvE experience.

So after you have a lot of people saying "PvE is cool!" and sticking around, you attract more persons, people that might not exactly make a habit out of Elite Areas, but still desire to remain in PvE. What do they have to do? Beat the game again? Yay?

Grind, simply put. Originally it was just high-end armor, and perhaps weapons or the trip into FoW/UW. Now we have Titles galore, then titles that affect gameplay, and recently, PvE-only skills.

Short of ANet adding additional new end-game content periodically, there are few alternatives you have to desiring to stick around, so enter the Grind.

Note: I'm not attempting to say that everyone who originally purchased Guild Wars in the early months were meant to switch over to PvP (I, personally, still spend nearly 80% of my time in PvE.) Hell, look how many people still stay in Pre-Searing despite that only meant as a temporary training ground.

Armor Change
-I've successfully beat all three campaigns with Hero/Hench of which they contained only ONE armor buff or less, and I hardly consider myself a "leet" player. You don't need to stack armor to win, change your mindset.

Sorry, but these kinda threads make me laugh.

Now i am ALL for making an opinion about an update, discussing the pros and cons of a nerf/buff and collaborating in a thread with people on ideas for better updates, but you really make yourself sound immature and uninformed. First off, "please do not discuss or refute", then can you please not post the thread? Honestly, what the heck is the point then? Without a healthy discussion; and where you basically state that you do not care what others think, you have become incredibly contradicting when posting in a forum.

So how has this last update "Removed all vestiges of the casual player"? If anything this has made more variety of goals for the casual player to work towards. And how are these skills only for "people who play 24/7"? Hero points are simple enough to attain, and made even ezier to attain now that we can actually buy them, a very simple system that any casual player can easily peruse. 3,000 faction per skill in factions, still easy. AB, AF, quests, old faction farming methods, and now even faction bounties! Tell me it isnt easy to attain faction, even easier these days; stop complaining about things that take minimal effort. (Getting Hero points on a Sunspear/Lightbringer LvL status is fair enough since getting to at least rank 6 is easily attained through normal storyline play resulting in 9 hero skill points right there... only 2 of which are needed for that professions PvE only skills, quite simple.)

Created a money sink? At the great fortitude of the casual player i might add! You can buy hero points in exchange for a skill point and 1 plat...I would say that is an incredibly good idea for those that can't dedicate as much time as a more active player and are low on hero points. 1 plat is no different from normal skills, and adds only 2 skills TOTAL per profession. If you wanted to get every class their PvE skill thats 20k, an amount EASILY made during the course of normal game play. If you honestly think it is "impossible to get" platinum, then i suggest giving up and leaving GW. Farming is still very viable, normal play results in many plat, random drops can give great turn-over, etc.

Who cares if tomes went up in cost? I'd rather spend 5 minutes (usually much less time needed) making the 1k for a skill, rather then 10-15 minutes trying to buy a tome so i can save a measily 200g-400g. If you say otherwise, then time isn't precious enough to you and you cannot legitamitly call yourself a casual gamer.

More build types useless? LOL! Oh NOEZ! 1 skill in the Earth tank build is reduced in duration, but STILL lasts longer then its recharge @ 16. How exactly does that make the entire build useless? Guess what, last time i checked the sky is NOT falling.


Honestly, your thread just makes you sound like another brat who wants immediate gratification. "I want it now, i want it without effort, i want it all, i want the best, i want it now!" Thats exactly how you are acting. PvE skills take very minimal effort to get, yet you object? hah.

Skill involved over time involved is mainly something more applicable to PvP. In PvE, how does that even make sense anyway? Any dufus can take cookie cutter builds and get through most of PvE fairly easily because of Ai. Evening if they are not smart enough to properly utilize that build, over time they will be able to snail through it. Ai will act the same, react the same and produce the same results every time anyone plays. PvP, humans are unpredictable. Therefore skill over time spent is required in order to counter the randomness of the human factor. PvE is basically grind by nature, by design and by necessity, yet i believe that Anet has combined a good amount of player involved skill WITH the grind that comes with PvE.

On that note, grind for titles in PvE is completely expected. Why is rewarding people who put in the time (for leveling titles) a bad thing? You yourself admit that people HAD to put in the time to max out titles, and in turn could "show off". So why can't they have a bit of advantage? They put in the time and effort with virtually zero expected reward, so Anet is kind enough to now reward their efforts AND provide incentive for those who haven't yet done so. It doesnt put you at a disadvantage, you aren't fighting against them. You can beat the game just as easily without any PvE skills or the titles affecting those skills. And again, the most minimal of effort to attain such skills... and you QQ. pfft.

So much of what you say is so off-base its a joke. "Some PvE titles are required to be max level for end game normal content"... huh? What game are you playing? Sunspear title is NOT required to be maxed. Lightbringer title is NOT required to be maxed, and is only marginally helpful when in much higher levels. No titles are required to max out, you my friend are stating plain and blatent lies.

I will be the FIRST to admit i hate MANY updates that Anet has made. However, i am also a bright enough individual to either adapt, or be mature enough to make a discussion focused thread with facts and reason, rather then a cry thread with conjecture and blatent false info. You must realize that you will get very little or no backing support whatsoever from this community with such an immature thread.

Threads with overal attitudes of, "I want it now, i want it without effort, i want it all, i want the best, i want it now!" do not hold any value in this kind of community and help no one. You need to step back and think about why you play this game, why you actually posted this thread, and why so many won't/aren't supporting your views.

I hope my comments were more productive and constructive then negative. I know i probably got kind of malicious in a few spots, but i mean well and am just trying to help you understand a few things... Thanks and

Cheers.


PS:: 190 dmg SF eh? Actually @ attribute 20 Fire, you hit for 147 dmg, and 20 is the cap. The Paragon and Warrior PvE skills are armor buffs, no negation to degen, armor ignoring, etc. Still a massive amount of damage sources out there. Also the skills have descent drawbacks as they are... enough so that they are NOT spammable unless builds completely dedicate to these skills. And keep in mind all the big changes from the update are still under testing status for a week... changes may occur.

Please don't bring up "don't need" arguments. They're moot and irrelevant. The topic of the thread is Guild Wars' straying from original ideas: casual, balanced, grind-free game play. They're all gone now. The PvE skills break all three fronts. I mean, what Ele can possibly stand to go without the +2 attributes skill now, really? Why even let us make and choose skill bars? Of course, heaven forbid you try to experiment -- the game simply doesn't let you anymore due to grind involved for getting anything.

You forgot the key words "off topic".