How come there were never any proph-only professions

I was thinking about this for awhile and I realized that there were probably good reasons to limit proph to only the core professions, but looking back on things, how come it never got new proph only professions added? If you look at all the games, Factions had two new classes, NF had two new classes and heroes, GWEN had heroes, but what does proph have that is so special about it? Yes it has a few armor sets and a handful of skills for the core classes, but that's about it and the other campaigns can boast just as much.

At the very least I wonder why Anet didn't decide to make two of the core classes proph-only so that people would have a reason to go back and get it. I've noticed that ANet is now selling all three campaigns together (but not GWEN) and looking back, I think that they had to do this just because with all the games out, proph offers little on its own. I understand that it was the first game in the series, but when they did the series like they did, proph has a weak storyline and when compared to the other games it has less content and gameplay elements unique to it.

I know it is very late to be talking about this, but I hope the developers have discussed things like this when they did their post-mortium on the GW1 games.

Proph is the original, so most new players nowadays would probably start... at the start. Proph is the cheapest, so most new players nowadays would probably start... by investing the least amount possible.

The simplest answer is probably that that would have required going back and making new quests for those added professions.

It's possible that it may have made more business sense to make a couple of what are now core classes Proph-only - maybe the elementalist and mesmer (these were the last professions to be added to Prophecies). But I think I prefer things as they are with all six being core.

Since I believe GW2 is going to be base-with-expansions rather than use the chapters system, it's probably a moot point anyway - it's not an issue that will come up with future releases.

I'm sure the devs have a lot of regrets when looking back at prophecies, and how much they could have changed, but then again, that's most every developer's goal (to strive for the perfect game) so it doesn't make GW any different. Also remember that the devs have been on strict timetables to keep expansions rolling out, and are now on to GW2, so it's not like they have much time or incentive to go back and completely rework an old game.
You have to remember Proph, being the first game, had nowhere to build off of, and everything they did in that campaign was new, and from there to factions, they learned a little bit, as well as ignored some advice, and created a game with Proph as the launching pad. Night Fall built of the experience of both Factions and Proph, and GW:EN off of all three. Although you can argue that this campaign is better, or they completely RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up that part of GW:EN, but the games came out in the order they did, and therefore used past experiences from the previous to build up and offer new/different game play to keep you entertained.
Again, there are a lot of "What if's", but that's nothing new for a mildly successful trilogy.
And the bundle of the 3 games is there to offer an easy way for someone to jump into the game. It doesn’t have anything to do with which ever campaign you feel is stronger holding up the other two, as all of that is simply a matter of opinion and perspective as to which campaign catered to your individual tastes more thoroughly. The fact of the matter is, it’s a lot more appealing to offer a bundle at a discounted price than each individual game at retail, and at this point in the game’s lifespan, it’s good to get a fresh package deal out to attract attention and make a little more cash

tl;dr-
It wouldn’t really have changed much. With the current price of each game, its rare to find people who don’t have the cash to buy all 3 main campaigns.
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What I want to know, is if Factions got Assassin and Ritualist as one campaign only, how come one or two of the now core professions didn't become a Prophecies only then (with no/little skills in Factions).

Such candidates would probably be Necromancers and Warriors (Ritualists replacing Necromancers and Assassins replacing Warriors) - of course, that doesn't mean if such a thing happened, that it would be Necromancer and Warriors that get the boot for Factions *and later Nightfall*. And then just adding some Ritualist and Assassin skills to Prophecies right off the bat.

imo, it would have been a bit more balanced out that way but whatever.

Well Prophecies was the first, everything was new at the time. The idea of adding in new professions to new campaigns was always an idea from early on, once the initial campaign idea was solidified.

It was thought that prophecies already had enough in it at the time to keep people interested until the second and subsequent campaigns started rolling out. It's kind of difficult to rework a game to fit in extra features like new professions and heroes, new kinds of PvP and new mission and quest objectives and styles.

The idea of faction specific skills was one way to expand the means to use characters from different areas of the game world. To simply work two new professions into the game would have taken a complete re-tooling of the way the game works, and with the sheer size of the game as it was, there was probably no point in back-tracking.

It's often common for a creator to think that looking back they would have done things differently, but at least GuildWars gave the devs the ability to improve upon past experiences and provide a wealth of difference in gameplay options.

You may have noticed alot of references to popular culture in GW and you may not, however there's also alot of tributes to old games built into new missions in GW. The idea of hero battles was influenced by realtime strategy games for instance. Remains of Sahlahja was a tribute to Pac-Man.
Prophecies was the opportunity to demonstrate a different way to play MMOs. It had alot of new things, but it also had alot of problems. The subsequent releases were the chance to correct those problems and offer players new opportunities. The fact that you can take prophecies for granted demonstrates how strong a foundation it has been for the rest of the games.

GuildWars was a new concept to the MMO industry. And it worked. Just remember that when you think of how plain prophecies is to you now. We didn't have anything like it before.

I've always thought it would have made more business sense (and been somehow more interesting as well) if they had left 2 of the professions out of Factions and Nightfall as well, though I'd have chosen necromancers and rangers for Factions, and warriors and perhaps monks for nightfall (at the same time giving dervishes better healing abilities). So many possibilities, and it would have provided that much more reason for people to purchase all 3, but yeah, as Azazel said: whatever.

heh

proph is the original game so everything is the same like factions it came with 2 extra chars to keep ppl intrested in more chars and same with NF

Interesting thought.

Mesmers certainly feel like "expansion" and "ascalon-only" class in scope of their abilities and "gimmickness" of joining necromancer role of hexer and ranger role of interupter. and could be one easily, other one would be tougher decidion.

I am guessing that if they are looking back they are probably thinking why the hell didn't they just stick with the 6 core classes. And like 1/3 of the skills.
Since this is obviously too much for them.

(Now, don't get me wrong - I would quit on the spot if they were to remove the ritualist from the game but that has more to do with the visual side of the class. The ritualist is just the most visually stunning thing I have ever played in a game (although I also do LOVE the spirit and ashes mechanics) - and I do hope that they find a way to incorporate those kind of visuals into GW2. (If not - the Witch Doctor might do the trick. )

Completely disagree...it's got the best storyline of all the campaigns. In retrospect, it would have been nice for prophesies to have had a couple of unique professions. Alas I can't see the ANet staff doing anything about it now.

off-topic - Bekkr, very funny avatar, but it's drOIds, not driods

Prophecies had/has some of the best Mesmer and Necromancer skills that are Prophecies only. (It was the reason I wound up purchasing that campaign. I had started with NF, then worked my way backwards - Factions, then Prophecies. I resisted GW:EN until I grew bored and wanted the new heroes.)

There are armor sets that are "Prophecies only" that are some of the coolest in the campaigns. (Though, I am partial to the Factions Ritualist armors.)

Kind of hard to have a set of core professions if you eliminate some of them from the other campaigns. But, could they have come up with 1 or 2 unique professions for Prophecies only? Sure. Though, as other have touched on, maybe adding new professions proved to be a mistake?

None of the original classes were made "Prophecies only" because the core classes are core classes. They are the ones that, in general, the game is most balanced around. Most of the gimmicky bulls*** we've seen in PvP has come about as a result of the expansion classes.

As for why they didn't go back and add classes to Prophecies: the game is already suffering from profession and skill bloat. That's part of the reason we're moving to GW2.

I would have voted mesmers & necromancers for the hypothetical pff-only classes... but you know, I must say the above poser saying "warrior" for pff-only actually makes pretty good sense looking at the state of warriors in the real gw world (and also since a=f and d=nf)


but hey, no qq over spill milk eh?

They started with 6 in Proph and decided to make them all Core instead of cutting any of them. Isn't it better to have 6 Core profession instead of 4 or 5?

Going back to Proph then or now just to add even more professions to make them Proph only sounds stupid.

So Prophecies doesn't need it's own unique professions, not all campagins should be equal in all aspects. More variety and differences is always better. Let just Proph be the land of the core professions... with so many skills you just can't miss if you want to play them.

I reckon it'd be unfair, because Prophecies has 6 professions, and the other 2 chapters have only 2 additions.
Because a lot of people have only NightFall or Factions, it'd be kinda bad how they can only have 2 professions and paying more than Prophecies costs.

Draxynnic, I think I like it better with 6 core classes as well, however proph still lacks much save for a few skills and armors for the core classes. Still, just because it was the original doesn't mean they couldn't have given it a little extra for people who own it. I also understand that a cost would have been involved in adding two new classes, but I think in the long run, it would have been better for the series than SF.

shru, I completely understand that proph was a learning experience which lasted through NF and GWEN and I'm sure the devs possibly have some regrets about it. However Anet being inflexible about not going back and ungrading it is no excuse for leaving it as is. I suppose that is also one of the big failing points of GWEN, it was Anet's last attempt to do anything major with the series and instead of going back and fixing some of the problems with all the chapters in addition to releasing it, they went for the quick buck.

Going back to learning experiences, it's hard to tell what they've learned from GW. First they added a ton of grind to the game via titles. Then they said GW2 is could have infinate levels. Now they are thinking about reducing title-grind in GW (not holding my breath on that) and I have no idea what that means for GW2. But I think Drax has a point in that new classes are going to be a moot point for GW2. Somehow I don't think there will be any new ones after the initial release.

Caballo, yes Proph was new but that didn't mean they had to limit their learning experiences to the newer games as they did. When they released that they'd be adding classes in later chapters they should have at least considered a few Proph only chapters as the games until GWEN are stand alone. That would have encouraged people who started with and like factions or NF to go back and get the earlier games quicker. I know some people disagree with me, but I think that they should have also gone back and added heroes to proph and factions with the NF release... as I see it NF has the skills and classes that would make people want to get it even if heroes weren't unique to it.

Lol upier, yeah keeping just the core classes balanced seems like too much sometimes for anet.

The Proph classes were quite well balanced to start with and make sense as "core" professions available to all. But one goal when making expansions/new chapters is to sell the new content. Guess what one way to do that is? Include imbalanced, overpowered new classes and skills that existing players gotta have to keep up.

You, sir, win the thread.
What? I don't see a problem. Maybe you should look again? This is not the dyslexic you're looking for... (thank you)
Not if only 4 of them had been made core to begin with.
See above. If only 4 of them had been made core when Factions came out, that would be accepted as the norm, and then someone would probably make a post asking why there are only 4 core classes, to which some bright spark would answer, "because they're CORE, that's why."
Is it? Who can say... I personally think it would have been better from a strictly business/sales standpoint if there were only 4, as it would have been another compelling reason at this late stage (besides just the Prophecies-only skills) for new players to buy all 3 original campaigns.
I agree that adding even MORE professions now would be silly. I'm just talking in "what if things had been done differently" terms here.
Actually, it's "unfair" the way it currently is. If 2 of the original 6 professions had been kept out of Factions and NF, then all 3 original campaigns would have had 6 professions in them only, rather than 6,8, and 10 as it is now.

Sadly, I also have to agree with Martin here that selling new, overpowered skillsets to an existing playerbase seems to be a large part of Anet's current business model. I don't think that philosophy is mutually exclusive with the idea of having a couple of Prophecies-only professions though.

A bright spark like yourself should have noticed the emphasis added to my second use of the word core. Read as: required, necessary, what the game is built and balanced around. You could not go from Prophecies' game mechanics to a campaign without any one of the core classes; they represent the archetypes that the game is based around, which were set in stone when they released the first campaign. An assassin could not replace a warrior as a frontline heavy damage dealer, and rits function completely differently than necros.

Put it this way: you can PvP just fine with only the core classes. You cannot have a competitive GvG team without mesmers, monks, warriors, or rangers. I'm not saying that every build must include each of these classes, I'm saying that not being able to roll one of them would put you at a huge potential disadvantage, because the metagame (and especially balanced builds) calls for these classes very often. Eles are too much of a common rpg archetype in pve to not have been a part of every campaign. You might make a case for necros, but that's only one Proph-only class, leaving the other campaigns ahead of Prophecies. And lastly, do you really think it would have been wise for ANet to say, "Hey guys, hope you had fun playing class X for over a year, but we decided to drop support for them, and only them out of all 6 classes, in the next campaign. Have fun with your new completely unrelated class!" Eeeeeeeeepic QQ.