Reducing the cost at a Skill Merchant (PvE)

Hello All!

I've been thinking of an upgrade to the game that may or may not be useful to some of you (There are always the naysayers), but probably most useful only to those who buy signets of capture a lot.

I am proposing that they introduce a way to reduce what you spend on skills at a skill trainer merchant (PvE). I don't know about any of you, but after a little over 3 years my skill prices are at the dreaded platinum. Whenever I want to buy a skill from a trainer on my warrior or a few other characters, I have to spend that platinum. I have probably spent well over a few hundred platinum on skills alone over the years.

This got me thinking a little bit. Does someone control the world wide training of skills? If so, who? I was thinking the Zaishen but I could be wrong. But let’s assume the Zaishen are in control of the training of skills and receive the money you spend.

Now that we know the Zaishen are in control of world wide skill training and receive your money whenever you wish to learn a skill, why not ally with them and help them to help reduce the costs of buying a skill?

As you know, we have three factions we can ally with currently. They can be viewed in our Hero [H] Window. They are known as Balthazar, Kurzick, and Luxon. If we are going to reduce costs of skills and wish to ally with the Zaishen, we must have a Zaishen faction bar added to the Hero window. But how do we get faction with the Zaishen?

To Gain faction with the Zaishen, we do quests. These quests may be located wherever you can find a Zaishen Ambassador or Zaishen Agent. They should probably be located in the more populated areas (Such as port cities). Or maybe they are located on the Battle Isles. The quests should also be repetable so that you can always try and work your way to cheaper skills. The quests should also only be available to those who have reached the 1 Platinum limit to keep things rounded off evenly.

How the faction system will work:

The Zaishen Faction limit can reach 10,000 like Balthazar.

Every 1000 Faction you have with the Zaishen reduces cost by 100 Gold for your next skill purchase. When you buy a skill you lose 1000 Faction and the price of a skill goes up by 100 Gold. Buying skills with 0 Faction does not hurt your general reputation with the Zaishen and your skill cost will never exceed 1 Plat.

Chart:

0 Faction = 1000 Gold, 1 Skill Point
1000 Faction = 900 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
2000 Faction = 800 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
3000 Faction = 700 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
4000 Faction = 600 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
5000 Faction = 500 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
6000 Faction = 400 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
7000 Faction = 300 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
8000 Faction = 200 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
9000 Faction = 100 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction
10,000 Faction = 0 Gold, 1 Skill Point, 1000 Zaishen Faction


Please refrain from taking my thread off topic in any way and please refrain from talking about easier ways such as obtaining a skill tome etc.

Constructive feedback and extra ideas pertaining to the topic are much appreciated.

Thank You
Chris

Would take an immense amount of time to code and test this, so I doubt Anet will even THINK about it. But even if they did, there is no reason for it. If you have reached the 1 platinum cost for skills, you should also have reached a point in the game where 1 platinum is easy to obtain. Quests and missions provide money, as well as items and gold the monsters drop. If anything was changed, it would be to allow you to use more than 1 skill point for a skill instead of 1 skill point and gold.

I just bought 50 Signets of capture.

I already had every elite capped.

I'm guessing you don't remember the old skill cost scale, really 1K per skill is chump change.

Why?

/not signed.

Either buy tomes, or pay 1K. There should really only be these two options. Buying/selling tomes transfers gold around (although its a small amount of gold), which is good for the game. Paying 1K for skills and cap sigs is a major gold sink, which is awesome for the game. Anyone going for the title pays ~320K.

Even so it adds up quickly. Some people may not farm much and try to do titles but have no great way to make money, or don't want to. Lazy or not, they want to be able to reduce the amount of money a skill costs.

I like the idea, in terms. however, 10,000?! Thats a bit much

It should still be something like this, I mean Zaishen Members with the Priest of Balthazar rank teach you skills on PvP characters.

its far too time consuming for anet

just buy tomes

If they wanted this they would've added skill tomes to the scroll traders already. (Still not a bad idea IMO)

Would prefer the option of spending more skill points. This zaishen system is too complex for a simple transaction.

/notsigned.

I think it was bad enough that they made skills drop from monsters (in the form of tomes). Buying skills is a great gold sink that GW needs in order to maintain a balanced economy. Compared to other RPG's, it is very easy to develop a character in GW, so there is no reason to make it easier. And it's not like we're talking about huge amounts of cash; it's only one platinum per skill.

I like the idea of Zaishen faction, but it should not be used for this. If you really want to combine the aspect of gathering faction and spending less gold to get skills...well, you already have that. You unlock the skills with balthazar faction and spend a discounted (in most cases) amount on a tome. Done and done

/not signed

Tomes? What are those?

/notsigned

You can allready do zaishen missions, this does not give faction but coins, from these coins you can buy tomes, which give you the skills, this does not cost a skillpoint nor does it cost 1000 gold *shrug*

/not signed

Remember when skills could cost you multiple platinums? That sucked. It just kept growing higher and higher the more skills you bought. They set a cap at 1k. Which is pretty easily attainable just from doing quests and missions. They've improved it greatly already, theres no reason to change it again.

Also, skill tomes. Players sell them for less than you would buy from the skill trainer. If you want something cheaper than 1k buy a tome.

/not signed

how bout the higher zrank you have the less u have to pay for skills

Skills are cheap enough as they are.
/notsigned

I got them all (But one) in my main character with Prophecies quests, hero skills points and lots of gold.

It's not hard and doesn't really take much time.

When I get the Vanguard to rank 10, I'll have the last hero skill point and all skills in one character.

I did it, you can do it too.

TOOOOOMMMEESSSS

Your problem has already been fixed.

Why not?

I don't farm at all. I have not had money trouble since before factions released. When I want something (be it a mod, armor, rune, consumable, or skill) I buy it.

Over the last few months I dropped close to 2mil on mini-pets, I'm currently buying one of every footgear for my elementalist and dying them pink, I just spent 50K on [effectively] useless Cap Sigs. Why? Why not! Its not like there is anything gamechanging to spend it on.

Can really tell the old players from the new. New players complain that things are too expensive, old players complain that there isn't anything worth buying.