Skill>time is why I love GW

Defintely still true. It was never completely true if taken literally, because it fails to account for how skill itself improves with time. The point of this statement was to distinguish GW from the Blizzard type games like diablo and WoW, where time always trumps skill because time produces huge advantages in gear that skill cannot overcome. In that sense, skill>time is still very much an accurate description of GW.

I thought this was a necro thread from 2005...

Skill is mostly optional these days, since just about everything has an easy mode.

This is a guild wars fansite. If you're not a fan, then you probably don't belong here.

And who are you to say who is a fan and who is not?

Just because Zinger isn't blind and sees stuff the way they are, that makes her "not a fan"? Please.

Saying you "see things the way they are" and that everyone else is blind is considered trolling. Stating what your OPINIONS are is fine.

These days? The games been easy mode since the beginning.

No pvp vs. pve flaming.

You don't need a skillbar period. Having both makes you a better player, however.
You can be a fan of Prophecies and Factions, and not play anymore. Just because you dislike NF and EotN doesn't mean you hate the entire franchise. I'm a fan of Star Ocean 2 but I don't play it everyday, or even in the past year.

The original "skill > time" thing was directed at PvP, so yes, it's quite relevant.

Only to PvP though, not to the whole game? Because that's how it appeared to be on the box: "Guild Wars-" not "Guild Wars PvP" "-is a game where you're rewarded based off of your skill, not time spent.

Well, it could be argued that Anet was surprised PvE was popular. I think even Gaile admitted that GW was not planned to be a PvE game, but instead, PvE was training for PvP.

(BTW, I'm not saying that PvP > PvE or anything like that. I only PvE myself!)

I do not think the question is whether the game has changed - it has. The question is whether we all as players approve of the changes.

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

over simplifying a bit. Of course the game changed... remember when we had to earn points to change our attributes around?

Not all players are ever going to like all changes.

Well Mordakai, let me put this another way, if you want specifics.

I think I can make the case that the game was originally marketed for the late teens and twenties crowd for the adrenaline-based PvP experience. That was their target audience, the 18 to 34 gaming crowd. The way that the game was originally made and marketed, as opposed to the game now, has changed specifically from:

"grind for vanities"
to
"grind for vanities and super-powerful skills that are exempt from the 200 point attribute balancing mechanic"

The adding of all the titles, sugar-cane and alcohol fueled as well as (un)lucky or exploration, etc. Lots of titles there, some of which are tied to game skills.

For some reason, I get the impression that these new additions are not targeting the 18 to 34 crowd. There are a lot of gamers in the 12 to 17 crowd, and their likes are different.

Not better, not worse, just different.

Just a thought.
TabascoSauce

Tabasco, I'm not sure about that. GW is one of the only MMO-type games that doesn't require a credit card to play, so there's been a lot of kids playing from the beginning.

That's a pretty great chart, and as far as I can tell, it isn't exactly limited to Guild Wars

Well, to be sure, I think the popularity of the PvE side of Guild Wars caught the designers off guard. So, they came up with an interesting way around the Level Cap: PvE Only skills tied to Titles. Some of these skills, like the Sunspear, require virtually no work outside "normal" gameplay to rank up.

The retro-added Kurzick/Luxon Title skills are the exact opposite, and (IMO) are completely broken. I guess Anet figured if they were going to introduce skills that were very difficult to get, let alone max, then they better be some awesome skills. (I actually have contemplated bringing 10 characters through Factions just to get faction from all the quests...)

I think the GWEN Title skills are somewhere in-between: They are not as easy to get as Sunspear skills, but they aren't nearly as hard to max as Factions PvE skills.

As you say:

- If I may ask so bluntly: so what? You've been claiming that skill is no longer greater than time and I've seen no logically or empirically sound arguments to back this up. It sounds like you have some kind of pathological distaste to anything with big numbers and progression tied to them, this is why you're having delusions about things like fame being "time>skill".

You don't get fame if you don't win. If you win many battles in row, I'd say you're skilled player. If you win many battles in row, you get exponentially increasing amount of fame, which (tautologically) makes the "grind" in fame track smaller. If you're a bad player, you spend much time getting small amounts of fame and it may feel like "grind" to you. Thus your resulting amount of fame is Fame = Skill * Time. Does this sound reasonable?

As for PvE, I really don't understand why you're saying Factions changed this "skill>time" mantra. For the record, Factions has the fastest level advancement of all campaigns and you fail to notice it. Nightfall is in the middle, but Prophecies had the slowest level progression of all three and that is because quests and missions offer so low experience bonuses. With the introduction of Hard Mode and skilltomes, along with ferrying system in Nightfall, you can get perfect character in one day. It would be 15 minutes if it wasn't for leveling.

Could you now please elaborate what you mean by this supposed change in "skill>time" mantra with concrete examples and statistics?

Skill > Time has been gradually contradicted by anet so... In essence, anet is flawed at keeping their word. Futhermore, titles are a reflection of experience and grind (Time > Skill) and all the skill nerfs kind of contradict Skill > Time anyways... Case closed.

- Aliens visit Earth every full moon, so I guess that's the reason why technological advancement is possible for mankind. Can anyone deny this claim, huh? Guess not, so it's true. This case is also closed as self-explanatory fact.