Guild Wars 2 to have simpler skills?

I heard GW2 is going to have less intricate skill combos... is this true? Does Arena Net intend on dumbing down the game?

From what I understand, GW2 will have a smaller number of skills overall, but they will be more complicated. Actions and environment will now have an effect on skills, so jumping and activating a skill will have a different effect than just standing and activating that same skill. Or fire skills will be less effective in watery environments. That's what I understood from what Anet has said so far.

No idea. No information about the skill system, professions, etc has been leaked. Probablly just a rumor (in part due to all the comparisons to GW2 with WoW, and thus people are thinking GW2 will be dumbed down like WoW is). But we have no idea at all.

On an interview, one of the developers (forget which) said an error they made in GW was creating way too many skills, which obviously means they won't be making as many skills for GW2.

I'm sure somebody remembers what i'm talking about and will be able to link or something, cause i can't seem to find it.

Yes, there was a press release that said there will be less skills in GW2 that will behave differently in different situations. However, I still find that is a way of dumbing down the game, because jumping just to use a skill seems stupid to me.

It'll also create alot of PvP madness, I think O'Brien called this "emerging complexity." I'll reserve judgement for how well/badly it is programmed.

EDIT: Anet= Good ideas followed by bad implementation

It depends...are they hiring employees that went to college?

yeah they said, too many skills is bad, and they probably learned by now the headache of skill balancing, i like the idea of environments influencing the skills but less skills could mean less build ideas etc, if there is even build that is.

If that means no chain-combos for sassis, that would be a welcome addition to GW2.

Fixed

I think I remember the article Gift3d is talking about, but I can't seem to find it either :/

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2007/03/interview_guild/

"Speaking of running around the world, that’s something you’ll actually be able to do; run, jump, basically just dork around however you like. When you land in a new world, O’Brien explained, you don’t want to have to read a bunch of skill descriptions, you want to run around and jump and swing, so that’s what you’ll be able to do in Guild Wars 2. It’s meant to be a learn-by-doing sort of situation–rather than have overly complex skills that take an excessive amount of brain matter to understand, players will learn less complicated skills that they will be encouraged to test out in any situation they can think of. What happens if you use this skill while jumping, or that one while surrounded by monsters? Who knows? Give it a whirl and find out! Strain referred to it as "emergent complexity," and if it works the way they say it will, I shall personally send them each a fruit basket. Having a wide variety of skills in a game is great, but the amount of reading and memorizing you usually have to do to have even the most functional ability in an MMO is enough to drop me into a deep state of catatonia."

Of course, when you have like 20 something skills just to remove hexes and conditions, you know that there is a problem with having a few too many skills.

Yeah, a smaller pool of skills with less redundancy and overlapping. As bhavv said, do we really need 20 condition removals? or 30 skills that push redbars?

Less skills but with more uniqueness/variation between the skills seems to be a good way to go.

Less Skills not Less intricate skill combos.

I just hope the new skill system wont be like the same you can see in many korean MMO's..
You'r Level 5 ; You can use FireBall
You'r Level 10 ; You can use Flamethrower
etc etc...

Anet said there will probably not be a level cap, so......

You're level 100, you get to use meteor crush!
You're level 1000, you can use meteor crush.[eh?]
You're level 10000, you can use meteor crush[wtf?]
You're level 10000000, you can still use meteor crush[f-this!]
......there wouldn't be enough names for all the level if the level cap thing is true.

But on the environment topic IMO the environment will probably affect the damage, casting, rc time, range of the skills, but I doubt there will be anything more than that, since then things gets REALLY complex and I'm not sure Anet can pull it off successfully and I doubt most of the players will have the energy/brain power to deal w/ it.

I hope if they put in fewer skills they will be able to balance out those few skills flawlessly.

hahahaha. ^^ hopefully.

they will have something else to worry about when GW2 comes out, the ability to run around and casting fireballs would be fun. Warriors would be so frustrated.

So is there like going to be no level cap at all with infinite levels?

We can try and grind for highest level? Yay, plz plz plz no level cap at all.

I suppose that attributes will be capped but levels should keep on rising.

Running around and throwing fireballs everywhere and anywhere will be major fun, especially with world PVP enabled =D.

Anet stated in a press that guild wars 2 would have simple skills not part of the skill bar of 8. stuff like jump, swim, etc...tahts what they ment by simple skills.

I heard it was going to have a small max level but allow you to see what you would be if there was no cap. So basically it caters to epeen and there will be a lot of people jumping into the game to try to kill lower level people once they get high level but failing since they didn't know that time is not still not better than skill.

It wasn't gonna have world PvP too (or at least I thought I heard this)... not that random kill crap I hate. I think they will make it somewhat mutual still.