Suggestion regarding PvE skills and titles

So, do it. Do something, if you want something in exchange, or play without the full advantage of those skills, which are not required anywhere in the game and work great even at lower level in thei respective titles. Blame people if you're not allowed in UB-only PuGs, not grinding.

Even everyday work is boring, I'd never dare asking for free food only because some people are richer than me and can afford having dinner in french restaurants everyday. Nourishment is necessary to survive, eating French food is not.

This benefit being optional is not besides the point. ANet doesn't ever have to do anything to simplify further something that's not mandatory or even needed to play the basics. What's next? Free Lv20 because leveling is boring?

If grinding is that tedious, I'd say tone down the mindless grinding or change the kind of effort needed to obtain the full advantage from skills (as the OP was actually suggesting). Removing it completely just because PuGs are demented about Ursan Blessing doesn't make any sense. And no, playing the game once is not enough, it's the basic task of your character upon creation, if having fun is really what you care about.

Rewarding grinding with massively overpowered PvE skills is very much against the GW original vision of skill over time. Grinding should not be rewarded with skills that affect gameplay. And don't say these skills are optional or that they do not affect gameplay because that is clearly not the case if you are trying to get into PUGs.

To say it is the players' fault for not taking lower ranks amounts to saying it's the players' fault for not allowing a level 10 player get into groups for elite areas.

It was big mistake to link PvE skills to grinding, and that reached an absurd level in EotN.

The root of the PuGs' attitude towards the rank is the title which requires grind.

I thought games were played to ESCAPE reality and RELAX by the way.

It. Is. Still. A. Benefit. Earned. By. Grinding.

So I suppose what, to start PvP no matter how good I am I must kill X amount of monsters?

Games are there to escape reality and enjoy, but when I'm staring at the TV screen just pressing the same few keys on my keyboard I'm not enjoying the game but enjoying whatever's on the TV.

Oh, and participation isn't the only thing that Ursan Blessing needs to be nerfed for.

Can't you escape reality and relax with non max skills? i thought playing a game was about doing something funny, not looking at yellow numbers floating on screen. Oh well, silly me having fun for so long not caring about this...

You. Are. Still. Suggesting. A. Benefit. Earned. By. Doing. Nothing.

I hate to quote myself but:

I'm for looking a solution against grinding. But I don't see any here. I see just people wanting free powerful skills, because linking them to the progresses in the storyline is just this. None of the 4 games requires more than a handful of hours to be completed. Tone down the skills accordingly, I say, so they're proportionate to the (much lesser) effort needed to get max skills. So that they become just "slightly above normal" and not godly skills. This will also solve the problem of imba skills being overused.

So why do you care about PuG not accepting you in UB groups? Isn't joining this kind of groups "enjoying whatever is" in the game?

/signed
Always good to reduce grind.

I would have to say, playing the game is more "something" than mindless grinding is.

Just because you have max Asuran/Norn/Dwarf/etc. and grinded your way to r10 doesn't mean everyone else should have to.

Someone with r10 Norn does more damage than me because I've only spent 1/10th the amount of time doing the same repetitive (although you say "optional") things he has, and that's the root of the problem.

Saying grind in GW PvE is "optional" is like saying getting a job and an apartment/house is "optional" in real life. "BUT YEAH! YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORK, YOU CAN JUST SLEEP ON A PARK BENCH!"

No, I'm not gonna blame people who want the best, that's just stupid. Say 2 people walk up to you, and Person X says "Shake my hand, and I'll give you $5" and Person Y says "Shake my hand, and I'll give you $20" and you can only shake one person's hand, which are you going to choose? It's the same basic principle.

Get rid of them altogther and just keep them in PvP.

I agree. It's also something more than:

... doing "more damage" with a skill.

To me, having fun is spending my time relaxing with friends and enjoying the game. NO ONE is ever preventing you from having fun by "doing more damage than you".

Don't tell me the problem is having fun if you just care about how much damage a skill could do. If you really like playing the game, that should be little to no matter. What's that, the 21th century version of the small penis complex?

Exactly. You don't have to. As you don't have to use the skills that, like it or not, come with them.

BTW, I have maxed titles on 1 character only. 1 out of 11 and a 12th is on the way. I didn't quit playing the others just because people around can do "more damage than me with a skill".

Exactly. How repetitive grinding is is the root of the problem. I've NEVER, EVER said I liked grinding, nor that everyone should be doing it. Grinding IS boring, period. There's a halfway between enjoying grinding and asking for free skills and completely removing grinding from the game, tough, which is also utterly incoherent with the hatred against Ursan arisen in the last six month or so.

"Ursan spoiled the game and ruined the economy! Ursan sucks! Remove grinding, so more people can use max Ursan without even spending half a minute thinking about how to get it!"... WTF?

I say (for the third time now, wonder if people here ever read messages from beginning to end), PvE skills could be linked to something else, something not tedious and repetitive as grinding titles. Quoting myself once again:

I liked the idea of linking them to the progresses in the storyline, as suggested by the OP. BUT I don't think there should be a linear correspondence between the progresses in the storyline AND the current ranks. I don't think people should get the equivalent of a r10 Ursan for just beating the Great Destroyer and clearing EotN in NM once. Not after 6 months or so of rants about Ursan and overpowered PvE skills destroying the game. Removing even the only obstacle in existence before their full effectiveness is giving the game the coup the grace. No, thanks. This is like admitting that "PvE skills > skill". "Don't make your own builds, don't think. Just wait 'till you beat the game and get that max Pain Inverter!"

Well, an accomodation is quite a basic need. PvE only skills are not. Players have done without them for about two years. So, THEY ARE optional. You can even choose not to get ANY of them. You have HUNDRED of standard skills you can get. That's like getting an appartment. Getting a max PvE skill is like getting a mansion. They don't come for free, and mansions are considerably more expensive than town flats.

Sure, if you could even choose not to get a job because working is boring, I wouldn't ever try to force you on it. You CAN sleep on a park bench indeed. "Just because you worked daily to pay your rents doesn't mean everyone should have to". It's you saying this, not me.

Shame that's how everything in life works. You want something, you do something to get it. No one EVER's gonna five you a free appartment for nothing.

So, if you/PuGs perceive Ursan as "the best", should the best be available in exchange for nothing?

Now a little effort is need. It's grinding, and grinding is boring. I'd sign for a change to make getting max skills more fun. MORE FUN, no LESSER EFFORT, please, or get them like a piece of cake but stop complaining about imba skills for good.

Skill > Time.

Hoarding along with idiots in UW > Fun

That's all you care about.

What?

WHY should you get a benefit for the amount of time spent grinding?

WHY should you have to complete GW:EN a couple of times to make a skill stronger?

WHY should the skill > time vision be changed?

Honestly, benefits given by titles was the worst idea yet. It is still a benefit no matter what you say and nobody will take less if they can aim higher. You should be made to complete a small questline, complete the game, ANYTHING but grinding in order to gain maximum power for these skills. I'm not just talking about Ursan by the way.

As for grinding requiring effort, you must be pretty bad if it actually requires effort for you.

Skill > Time has nothing to do with what a person wants, it is something that made this game seperate from other games and you actually haave to put work in to get to where you want to get to. Whether or not they are optional is not the case, it's that they give you a benefit and who wouldn't aim higher? I'd rather see them impliment something that powers the skills that actually takes skill and rewards skillful play.

A SMALL questline for a REASONABLE skill is FINE with me, with bold and caps, I'm getting sick of repeating the same thing over and over... That's what I've been asking for so long, had you taken care about what I wrote before. Most of the PvE skills available right now are ridicolously powerful. People caring about "skill" should ask for a limitation to those skills that have cheapened the game so much. So: remove grind, tone down those skills, make them obtainable through questing, fix the grinding and the imba skills problems alltogether.

Easier proliferation of ridicolous power =/= Skill

A small questline and then you get Godmode skillbars: Cheap Skills > Actual Skill

People longing to have the same advantages they're being spiteful about (with no effort) -> Envy

Skilled players don't need those "advantages" anyway. They do without PvE-only skills, they manage to play with whatever they've got, even without those shiny "full advantages" awarded for the time spent. That's what I call skill, the actual ability to play the game efficiently. Smashing three buttons while under the Ursan Blessing or autokillng bosses with Pain Inverter has nothing to do with it. To me, lots of build not requiring any PvE skill are much more efficient to run, if you're skilled enough to do it.

To me, it looks like you're just envious of other people's "advantages", you just take "damage" into account, and talk about "fun". I don't use PvE only skills. They've chepened the game so much. I care about "skill", that's why I wish they never existed, asking to be even easier to obtain because Skill > Time makes me laugh. I don't want them to widespread further more, just because of lazy people being refused in hoarding groups.

Oh, okay so I suppose for people who don't "need" these advantages we should give them a sub-par skill bar. "A good player never abandons his best weapons."

As for "asking to be easier to obtain because skill > time", I think you're retarded. Seriously, if it's SKILL > TIME then it's going to be HARDER, ontop of that grind was NEVER hard at all.

As for jealousy, you do understand I can simply grind books with ease and get to my goals. As for being refused, I never PuG outside of Alliance Battles. Participation is not the point at all and this thread isn't only about Ursan. Also, how is it laziness? Lazy because you'd want the biggest benefit of something, but it's not skill based but time based? PvE is already a joke anyway, because all they did do was pump up the numbers.

I give up.

Maybe I'm retarded. Maybe I just can play the game and I do that without caring about non-existing advantages I might be missing, without using boring skills, without QQing about everything other people could get and I didn't.

Maybe I just play (and have fun). Something you all should start doing instead of complaing, before it's too late.

You do know what complaining does right? A company that doesn't get complaints would have to be reaaaaaly good. People would want something in a game changed, and skill > time was something that Arena Net promised.

You do know that they are infact advantage?

You do know people have fun despite what they say?

Thank you for leaving the Big Brother House.

Promised and delivered. Your skills still matter more than the time spent. You still can play as a skilled player. Cheap, grindable skills just gave some less skilled players an alternative. Not that I agree with that, it made the game cheaper, but ANet didn't make ANY skill in the game grindable, forcing you to do it. The basic approach still apply, now there's just one possible approach more, the mindless, grind-based, button smashing one.

BTW, I said I'm for both the removal of grinding and toning bow those skills alltogether (4th time, will you ever get it?). I just think that removing grind and leave those skill as powerful as they are now is not a solution, it will just promote the usage of idiot-proof and oh-so-advantageous PvE only skills over true ability. You shouldn't ask for it, if skill is really what matters for you. I don't get it, why are you attacking me? Didn't you say you're hoping for a serious nerf of the Ursan Blessing just before?

They are already idiot poof from even a low rank.

Oh, and this thread isn't actually about a PvE skill balance. It's about the removal of grind, and that is why I'm not saying anything about the power of these skills.

As for "personal attacks", I didn't say anything like that except for one time, and that statement you made doesn't even make sense. If it was skill > time then it would be built to be hard and not easy.

So, what's wrong with what I said? They're powerful enough as they are, even at low ranks... Why promoting them further more by removing the only obstacle (boredom) to their ridicolous max power?

I want them to be also less effective while we're at it, is that so wrong?

Because it's still a benefit powered on grind.

As for wanting them to be less effective, this isn't about balance but removing grind.

/kindasigned

I didnt read all the posts, so i'm just going to throw this out there-

Maybe make all the Eotn title tracks scale with your Adventurer of the North title?

Ok, I'll put it simple, since you don't seem to get it

The whole PvE skills business is now:

Big Time -> Bigger PvE skills

Which is theoretically how things usually work. Big Effort -> Big Reward, yet the effort needed here is just a matter of TIME, and that's incoherent with the famous Skill > Time claim. Let's remove grind, then

Simply removing grind will make it:

Little time/something fun to do with proper ability -> Enormous skills

Which is like saying "Come on folks, use PvE only skills some more, you don't even have to grind those titles anymore to use them effectively!". People will do that, guaranteed. Just look at what happened when Anet threw PvE skills at them. People overused them and tried to get anything they could with greed. That's why now PuG refuse non-max Ursans: what really matters is damage output so that hoarding is quicker.

Gifting (?) players with those kind of skills has been naive from Anet, or maybe they did it on purpose, who knows.

I just think it should be:

Little time/something fun to do with proper ability -> Slightly above normal skills that are good when used in some tactical way if possible

Just that.

Oh, I agree.

Grind is good for the game.

This thread isn't about balance, it's about reducing grind. Balance has nothing to do with this thread at all, so stop bringing the power of the skills into this because the power does not matter, only that grind benefits the power of your skills still.

I think no one on Earth would ever disagree then, so if it's just about being favourable toward grinding or not, this thread is pointless. If anyone enjoys grinding, that person must be obviously disturbed.

I want grinding to be riduced like anyone else. Subsequent balance is necessary tough, otherwise reducing/removing grinding will just make imbalanced skills even more accessible. Ad you said, this game is easy enough even without PvE only skills, so in half an hour or so everyone will be running max PvE skills after having beaten that "small questline".

Sorry, but this game's dynamics are not made up of watertight compartments. A significant update like "removing grind" WILL have consequences. I'm just considering them and thinking what should be done along with it.

You mean like a significant update of "adding" grind?

As for a "small questline", how could you tell how hard it would be?

Well, my bad, I interpreted "small" as "short, affordable and fun". Sorry, I misunderstood this. Well, I just want the power of PvE skills to be proportional to the effort needed to get them (just like it is now, too bad this big effort is also a big waste of time spent grinding), so if you're to retain the current effectiveness, this questline is gonna be REALLY hard (and most probably also very time consuming, just like fullruns in elite areas).

I'd like a "difficult" questline. But it must be "difficult", not a frustrating and demented show of strength like Hard Mode was when compared to Normal Mode. That wasn't any difficult, it just featured the very same idiotic AI with much higher damage output, more health and faster casting times.

So:

- People who already have got their skill thanks to grinding will be unaffected. They'll still have their advantage rewarded for time, and some of them will also retain skills they'd probably never be able to get with the questline. Unless they get stripped of their skills and have to get them all again. Harsh, but it could work. I seriously doubt Anet's ever gonna take this route tough.

- Average/casual players might complain about difficulty and debate about the "unfair advantage" those skilled players might have. ANet won't ever take this risk either.

If they ever do this, get ready for the flood of whining soon after. Well, who cares, people whine about everything, so nothing new, but I'm afraid such a radical solution wouldn't be easily taken into consideration.