The problem of PvE skills.

PvE skills were created to lessen the impact of PvP skill changes to the PvE game. These skills, however were poorly implemented; by linking PvE skills to title tracks, ANet has created a "time>skill" statement. Put simply, grinding titles for PvE skill benefits is bad for the game. Furthermore, the three Norn blessings are possibily the worst addition to the game, as they completely contradict the original premise of Guild Wars. These blessings essentially give you a second skillbar; you can bring any one blessing along with seven other skills; the blessings also have skills themselves, further adding onto the limit of eight skills on a skillbar.
Furthermore, the Norn blessings in particular have created title discrimination in PvE. Title discrimination has been in the game since 2005 (Hero title, but it wasn't really a title back then). This, however adresses the issue in PvE, not PvP.

Titles were added into the game to give people an optional incentive to keep playing PvE. When titles were first introduced, they did not have any inherent benefits as motivation to work on them, and yet plenty did work on them. Titles have went from completely optional to semi-required; GWFactions added quests that require anybody to gain 10,000 faction to advance through the game, and GWNightfall added a couple of sunspear rank requirement quests. Gaining 10,000 faction or rank 7 sunspear is not difficult, but it really is the principle of the matter. These requirements contradict the initial meaningless purpose of titles.

I propose that a new PvE only attribute is created for all PvE characters that functions just like any other attribute in the game. The PvE attribute would not have any inherent benefits; it would just scale the PvE only skills according to the investment (0-12; no runes or anything) as opposed to scaling PvE only skills through a title.
Is this a practical solution? I don't know, but I believe it is a good solution to partially fixing the problem of PvE skills.

However, doing this will remove incentive to some titles (Kurzick/Luxon, Sunspear). A solution to this issue would be to create an inherent benefit to working on these titles. For example, increase the capacity of Kurzick/Luxon faction by 1000 points per one rank achieved. For the Sunspear title, some sort of inherent benefit could be added, similar to the Lightbringer or any of EOTN reputation titles (I can't think of anything at the moment). This would reduce the "grind" and promote a more "skill>time" statement, without removing the incentive to work on optional titles.

Finally, I propose that the three norn blessings are removed from the game. Make them exclusive to their respective quests (Ursan/Volfen/Raven Aura). These skills are bad for the game because they do not promote strategy with skillbar creation; furthermore, these skills completely contradict the premise of guild wars. These skills also promote title discrimination. However, the benefits of these skills are that they transcend profession discrimination, and make the game more accessable. Moreover, these blessings are easily abused by simply equipping a weapon set such as .

These changes would restore some integrity back to the game, and would push it back towards the direction of "skill>time".

/Signed on all counts.

Titles were good when they were just vanity items, but in Nightfall and definitely EoTN they became way too important to gameplay in almost every respect. Titles and their associated ingame pluses completely ruined the idea that skill is better instead of time.

I like your idea of having a PvE attribute instead of grinding out titles. Seems like a good solution to reign in titles and make them back into vanity items.

/signed
I'm sick of grinding.. u cannot get a UW team without at least r9 Ursan..

Blablabla, the fact still remains you dont need titled skill tracks which unlock certain skills in order to complete PVE, and PVE titles still don't SKILL>over time. NEXT.............

/Signed.

Grinding. Is. Bad. Especially when you get benefits to your character's abilities.

/signed
but it helps Anet make money so it wont happen

don't see how the new PvE attribute would work for a good build. One purpose of PvE-only skills is for the skills to work well without the need of attribute points, which, in turn, helps people make more spread out builds, less attribute points needed, more to be put in other attributes.

I do, however, /sign for the removal of the Blessings. I will also /sign for making the PvE-only skills weaker, along with adding non-gaming benefits to the titles that have PvE skills, such as your suggestion for 1k addition to the bar for each rank for Luxon/Kurzick title.

And I will say, lots of grinding=bad bad bad. Some grinding=not terrible, but not good. No Grinding=great

Oh, gods, not again. Seriously, if you don't like the 'grind' - and absolutely none of it is necessary to progress through the game, do endgame content, or unlock all content, even in Factions (or do you consider taking bounties and killing stuff you encounter while doing quests, quests themselves, and perhaps a little Alliance Battle, in the case of Factions, to be grind?) - consider your $100-$200 money well spent (surely you've gotten far more than your money's worth by now?) and move on to another game.

After all, would you keep playing any other CRPG (Final Fantasy, for instance, to use the most obvious and well-well known example) after it's started to bore and frustrate you, especially if you've completed it multiple times already?

Although I see some MINOR problems with PvE skills, I don't think they need such a major revamping. Besides, if you look closely at the picture you posted, you see some interesting things. Skill>Time....

Skill as in the Warrior with Swordsmanship skill along with Strength, Water, Air, and Fire skills? And using a bow? Yep, lots of skill in that build, and use of it. Makes for a nice box cover art picture, but a bad demonstration of skill.

A separate attribute would still require grinding, unless you gave free points to it. If you gave free points to it, wouldn't that allow a level 1 character to have unbalanced skill options from the Luxon/Kurzick skills? And if it is a true attribute, how do you allow effective use of someone wanting to use Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support, Cry of Pain, and Ether Nightmare on a Mesmer, and still effectively use Migraine, Power Drain, and Power Return?

/unsigned as it isn't needed, and would create new headaches

/yawn

Not again. They already know about this. There's no need for more.

/signed
Grinding is for dummies.
Blablabla, the fact still remains that grinding in order to get your skill better is against skill > time policy.

Considering I can complete the game with no skills on my bar, my statement is still true, then again it becomes AI>time something Anet dropped the ball on to cater to the PVE'ers, when that ceases to exist you can come back and moan. Oh and it's not breaking any policy that I see, it's your choice to level a title track to use that skill if you want, and putting different skills on your bar that aren't title based still promotes skill over time, nice try. Pretty sure that picture is prophicies based too.

Erm..? QQ moar pl0x
Honestly, how many times do people have to hear this?!

YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE THEM!


/unsigned

You didn't have to use exploits, duping or the Sunspear skills that were nerfed aswell. Guess what? They got fixed / changed.

But other players less skilled than you can, and in doing so forgo to the time and effort put into acquiring actual skill. This puts players who don't use these skills as a disadvantage as well. You don't have to, but your handicapping yourself.

To those saying just don't use the skills, read the OP.

This is blatant bait and switch. I for one would like a refund for my purchase price seeing as this is FRAUD.

I paid for a game that required skill, not grind.

Comparing PvE skills to exploits and duping? You can do better. They'll fix the Norn Blessings the moment they release a new campaign/expansion forcing everyone to purchase that one for the new elite skills.

Time and effort to gain skill, or time and effort to grind titles. Either way, they've put time in.

Well, by the same logic of "Don't like it don't use it", exploits and duping don't affect me, because I don't PuG or trade.

Oh, and read the rest of the post. Don't forget that the skills: There's Nothing To Fear and Seed of Life, PvE-only skills buffed by the Sunspear title got nerfed.

Let's take a look at what A-net stated: "... skill, not hours played .... it will always be your skill that earns you victory or defeat".

First let's take a look at the first part, the skill, not hours played part.
Skill is something you get by playing. So the more you play the more you learn the game and the more your skill increases.
If you enter RA for the first time you probably have a hard time to get a winning streak. Except when you have a good team or inbalanced build.
Same for high level PvP/PvE, if you have not played an fair amount of time you can't compete in high end content, like setting fast times in the various Elite Areas in PvE or holding halls regular or play on the top of ladder for a long period.
So far for that part. Time played has always mattered.

Second, the 'skill earns' part.
It's still true.
Skilled players still make a difference even when not using PvE skills.
Take the UW event DVDF organised a while ago.
[agro] won that one easily in a time that none of the other teams got near.
That's what skilled players can do.
But now take a look at a guild like [agro]. Not to be offensive to them but several of my guildies have been with them and found them too demanding.
Again people need to invest a lot of time in the game to compete at their level.

With the PvE skills, specially the blessings, the time you need to invest has somewhat shifted from time in the area to time grinding for a certain title.
Nowadays it's possible for every player who wants to invest some time in getting a certain title to finish every elite area.
Something that in the past could only be done with resticted group builds or with guild teams and investing time in that area of the game.

I think that from the time perspective new players gained a lot from the blessings.
Instead of learning to play balanced, which takes a lot of time, they just need to invest to get one skill, Ursan Blessing and get a high Norn rank.

Now you have to consider something.
Before Kaiz posted their build only the best teams were able to finish DoA.
Their build made DoA accessible to PUGS.
And no doubt they invested a lot of time in making the team build.
The same can be said about other team builds, like the Steel Wall build for Deep.
It was not made in a single day, an enormous amount of time was invested in developing and 'perfecting' the build.
And more competent players played other builds or other ways to make the builds even more effective. But that also requires investment of time.

The only valid reason to remove the various PvE skills would be to make the Elite areas truely Elite again.
Where only the skilled people can succeed.
Not by grinding some title but by spending hours and hours in those areas.
It would lead to completely empty outposts again, just as before Ursan Blessing hit the big crowd.

I don't like the PvE skills and think they are required too much in certain areas.
But there has NEVER been a true skill > time argument, anyone playing on a competitive level in any game knows you need to invest time to develop skill.
And the less gifted you are on skill, the more time you need to invest to develop it.

If you don't see the difference between time invested (as in, learning how to play) and time invested (as in, grind so your skill will do moar domage!!) then /pity