GW Skillbar: How well did it work

One of the core concepts of Guild Wars is the limited skill bar, 8 skills, 64 per team.

Skill selection is important, however it means limited adaptability during battle. Wrong build or skills could mean trouble.

Is what you bring more important than how you use it?

Would Guild Wars be better if we could bring more than 8 skills?

For GW2, at least for PvE will be open instance, that will mean that the skillbar is potentially adjustable in combat zone.

I like the ability to only bring 8 skills. It needed you to plan ahead, and if planned badly, you'd probably get wiped.

Don't forget the addition of consumables already enabled people to bring 'more than 8 skills'. For instance, people didn't need to bring an IAS anymore, because they could just pop an Essence of Celerity. You didn't need to bring a rez anymore, because you could as well wipe, rez at a shrine and use a DP remover. And who needs a skill that increased your defense when an Armor of Salvation already gives you a nice boost?

In my opinion, Guild Wars would be alot worse when we are able to bring more skills. The limitation of 8 makes you specialize in a certain area, be it DPS, snaring, protection, healing, support... It emphasizes teamplay, you need to play as a team to be effective, no profession can perform on its own.

If that's true, it's yet another one of many great, unique features GW ushered in that they will be abandoning. The 8-skill bar was a great idea and adds a lot to my enjoyment of GW.

To be honest, I love it. It makes the game what it is. I don't think that Guild Wars would be better if we had more than 8 skills, it would probably be worse due to the ability to pack extra counters in the bar. Having the limited selection forces people to counter with their actions and helps enforce balance. Clearly what you bring isn't as important as how you use it - give the same build to a r ~20 guild and a r~800 guild and see who comes up on top most in a best of 5. Yes there's an element of rock paper scissors, but I don't think there's any current build that you can't beat by use of tactics. Same in PvE - usually, even if you don't have an ideal setup, you can work around the problem by approaching it differently.

For PvE, planning ahead is of course always a good idea, especially going into a static area were the opposition is unchanging. However in PvP when you cant predict what you'll face, skill selection becomes more of a factor in success.

In the argument of skill selection versus skill use, consumables bypass it by not being skills themselves, or limited in quantity or selection.

While i think consumables are a poor addition to the game, i understand why they were added. its more a game design flaw of the level cap and the need to increase the combat challenge in some areas. the silly buffs monster received in PvE hm, while the player essentially has the same stats opened a demand for a player equalizer.

Unfortunately players are free to then use these items at any point of the game, areas which were not designed to take the players new found advantage into account. And that's simply a form of power creep common in a lot of games.

As a game it sort of worked, but it has also lead to big skill balancing problems. On the whole I would rather have a game with less skills but better thought out and freedom of choice in the professions.

The whole two profession concept sort of fell apart too with infinate respec. It was much better having the freedom, but the game wasn't designed that way so what we have here now was never intended and so its a bit of an uncomfortable bodge.

good: being able to choose 8 skills
bad: having 1319 skills to choose from

I think it worked out really well and i hope they wont change it in gw2

they could make skill change zones or maybe do it so you would have to talk to some priest or a shrine to be able to change

As much as the extra skill(s) could be useful, I think 8 is just fine. Dont wanna be overwhelmed with 900,000 skills are over your screen.

The 8-skill bar is one of the things that makes GW unique, IMO. I like that it requires tactics, planning, and compromise - "Oh, I really should bring x, but I also think y would be useful... ah, maybe the other guy can bring x and I will bring y... but wait! Skill z combines the two for a slightly reduced effect - maybe I should bring that instead." Or "We know we are going to be fighting Destroyers here, and we have a Pyro, so I guess that means the Ranger has gotta bring Winter, which means maybe he's going to have to sacrifice another skill and one of us can fill that in." It actually requires thinking.

It's one of my big struggling points with WoW. I have my entire keyboard hotkeyed to all kinds of skills and items and what have you, and I can't keep track of them all, and they're always there. So I feel like I'm not really adapting to the situation any. Plus, all the skills feel the same - "Okay, this skill does degen, and so does this one, and so does this one... 1-2-3-spam-wand-attack." I feel like there's no need for all the skills since they don't accomplish different things.

So they better put the 8-skill-bar in GW2, or it really will just be a lame WoW/EQ/everyfantasymmothat'sbeenmadeinrecenthistory clone. My list of things to maintain for the next game:
- 8-skill bar
- Separation of item form and function (IE armor art =/= armor protection/buffs)
- Instances (but they've already said they won't do that... :P)
- Level cap (see above - hopefully it won't be really high, though it seems like they're leaning that way - personally I think 50 is as high as I'd want to go)
- Dual profession (unless they merge the professions by logical pairs as I suggested a while ago)

Skill bar with 8 skills was a great idea and I think it works well. However being able to change some of the skills while in zone would be nice. Extremely frustrating when someone forgets to bring an important skill or forgot to change their build and then have to restart. Specially when you have a limited time to play.
Also when going to a new area or mission that you haven't gone before being able to switch out skills on the fly would be nice. Should not be able to switch out skills while in combat though.. I really do not like restarting the same mission multiple times to just get the right skill selections. I haven't had to do that for a few years but I remember how it was when I was new to the game.

From what i have seen, most of MMO skillsets are much simpler and players generally only use several skills while grinding/playing anyway.

They might as well all have 8-slot bar that is locked outside outpost, it would hardly change a thing. Don't be confused by some ~40 skill slots in wow screenies, noone is really using more than 8.

Example: I am cat (rawr), all i ever use is mangle-rake-tiger-rip-(shred & rawr & berserk in group), that is 4 to 7 skills. i get to cast a buff. Yay, i can fit to 8 skill slots. Sure there are tons of other abilities, but that does not mean they ever get used because they suck and are redundant - in a bad way, they are simply inferior and not get used. There is distinct lack of situational skill use, it all boils down to simple press-on-recharge and that is all it can be.

In guildwars, this is different, there are many abilities with quite pronounced "right situation - goldy, everywhere else - wothless" status. In adition, pretty much everything in GW stacks. There was some care taken - regen/degen caps for example. That that does not really fix rudiculousness of being able to stack everysingle monk enchant or every single hex or shout.

For what we were told, skill system in GW2 is going to be much, much simpler - first because they propably learned from ballance hell, so we are looking at some ~8 skills that form core of build and ~ 4 skills as swapouts to fine tune. Some limited self buff and target other buff. Nothing more. Which serves three purporses:

a) easy to ballance
b) easy to learn & play
c) easy to group with

Not to mention that since it is going to roots of mmoing, there will be strong solo component where all classes need way to solo mobs to grind xp. This suggests that monster bars will be much less varied and will be build so that they do not interfere with or even disable any gameplay style. We are talking about likes of melee foes using no skills or negligible, flavor, skills. This kind of gameplay does care about full access to skillbar - players will figure out most efficient grinder (party premade by devs) and use it. Since there will be no situations asking for different approach, any usage of more than 8 skills is not going to matter because they will be panic buttons at best. They can as well let people access whole skillset if GW2 is going to resemble any traditional MMO. It will make em happier to fill screen with icons that they never click, but that technically might click.

Choosing 8 skills before battle, which then remain static during battle, can sometimes leave you hosed if you come up against something unexpected that the skills on your bar simply can't compete with.

I've been playing Demigod lately, & I like the on-the-fly customization you can do in there a bit better. You choose a character, enter battle, & then must choose which character-unique skills you want to power up, typically once per level. This allows adapting to strategies & enemies on-the-fly & feels a bit more 'fair' & player-skill-based.

However, I don't know how a similar system could be implemented in GW while keeping its unique feel. In short, I like the 8-skill bar, but think it could be made a bit more flexible somehow.

I wouldn't be surprised if in GW2 you can have more than 8 skills on your bar *in PvE*, to give you a much wider range of options. Today in GW you feel like a very specialized character due to the skill limitation, and that is fine, because if you are playing by yourself you are supposed to bring henchmen along to cover those weaknesses. However, if they are making it a little more like other MMOs, where your character can solo and be self-sufficient (as opposed to the model of you being a solo-player in an NPC party), then I can see them increasing the number of skills you can bring for PvE.

In PvP I think they should stick to the same limitation of 8.

edit:

That is really not true. My disc priest used these in every PvP match: Dispel Magic, Mana Burn, Psychic Scream, Renew, Power Word: Shield, Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Penance, Shadow Word: Pain, Holy Fire, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death, Prayer of Mending, Pain Suppression, Power Infusion, Inner Fire, Inner Focus, Fear Ward, Will of the Forsaken, PvP Trinket. If you are just grinding on mobs you do use a lot fewer abilities though.

It will be interesting to see what the number of abilities is that feels "just right".

8 skills is suprisingly alot of skills...

dont forget that if you were allowed to have more than 8 skills, the game balance would be treated completely differently.

your probably thinking about it now, with 8 skills powered as they are thinking 'why cant i just have mending on the end?'. but if you were allowed to have your 9 or 10 skills, the skill balances would be completely different. otherwise, skill bars as they stand would be overpowered for farming etc if you were allowed more.

Most people that play the game now probably don't even remember why the reason is that you only have 8 skill slots on your bar.

Limited skill use in a team setup encourages players to pick skills and make builds that will work together with the whole team. It is a core element of the game and I believe that it works very well.

If you increased the number, then the skills we have access too might have to be globally nerfed as an extra skill may result in a stronger ability to synergize, bigger combos, or just more options mid battle. The same is if you decreased the number, but would be a buff instead of a nerf. If it works similar at all, I would prefer to keep the number of skills at eight in GW2, just for tradition's sake.

It was one of the primary reasons I didn't buy the game after beta testing.

12chars

Not really as you would still be limited to the 8 you have on your bar, since GW2 is going to be persistent, meaning there will be no in town areas to act as "meeting zones" for outside quests and such so the ability to change your skills on the fly is a must. this doesn't mean that you can use every skill you have, just the ones on your bar

The 8-Skill system is the best system ever.

I see some very compelling arguments for 8 skills. Although I remember the time when you didn't know what was out there, what you were up against. There were no Wikis, no TS/Vent, nothing to really inform you of how best to prepare, except the experience of failure.

I always wanted just one more slot for that extra skill. I thought that either having the ability to load backup skills on the fly, or at least 10 skill slots would have been better. I do agree that having a finite amount and having to do some build planning is what makes GW stand out for me.

If I could just have that one more slot! (oh, and unlimited free storage and an ingame auction house, and a magic pony, and ...)

I like the 8-skill system. It makes other interesting things possible, such as elite skills and varied combinations of primary and secondary classes.

I like the 8-skill setup. 9-10 might have been my preference, but it's a good system overall. What I am looking forwards to in GW2 is the more limited selection of skills. Notably, I recall hearing that the skills themselves vary in functionality depending on the situation. I don't know how they're going to implement that, but tweaking skill functionality on the fly sounds exciting. It'll also help reduce the extreme redundancy in certain skill fields... i.e. healing prayers.

This one heals an ally!
This one heals an ally for more, but for more energy!
This one heals an ally for more, but with reduced range!
This one heals an ally for more, but gets interrupted easily!

And so forth. It gets silly. Those could all be put into one skill with modifiable stats.

I also hope GW2 does away with some of these ridiculous farming builds. Things like Shadow Form essentially put the player in a bubble. They're playing with themselves, not against the game anymore. Soloing should be possible, but in a way that rewards a player's skill, not their ability to remember when to hit 1, 2, and 3.

i think 8 skills is wicked. there's so much thought and creativity that people put into builds, whether its 1 man, 4man, 8man, pvp or pve.

There still will be towns and such in GW2. Just because the areas are now persistent doesn't mean that Anet is abandoning the 8-skill system.
They can easily create some sort of feature that will differentiate between combat zones, and towns.

And the 8-skill system made you plan things out. Instead of just taking people, you had to think about what you were bringing and how they were setup. Especially for elite areas.

Can't say it any better.

8 is a good number. It's enough for combos, but limited to force compression/choosiness. It worked great.

You remember all the times you said 'Damn, if only I had one more skill slot.'

Yeah, that's what made it so good.

Do you know what is nice about this thread? For once we all pretty much agree that something did work right. It's nice to see we can from time to time that can happen.

EDIT: It's kind of funny that the thread stopped here. It's like people are saying OMG, WTF we agree on something , what I am I going to do?

I love the 8-skill bar. It meant I actually had to think about what skills I needed to bring instead of just spamming a variety of skills.

Just for interested people, it's because skills were supposed to rings worn on the fingers. Thats 8 skills (thumbs don't count).

Probably says that on wiki somewhere.

It's the second best feature to this game, other than no monthly fee.

- As evidenced by the fact that no one PUGs and PUGs suck. Who the **** even bothers to change their skillbar every time someone random has different idea what he wants to play? Think what the skill system in this game is trying to accomplish. Think alternatives to get to that goal. Then think if the skill system really works or not.

Wonder why the most popular team builds are those where every character has nearly identical skillbar (Ursan, Shadow Form, spikers...)

8 is a fine number of skills. The only problem (in pvp) comes when skills are imbalanced and the presence of one skill can win or lose you the match.

The GW skill bar is what made GW great, coming up with build synergies and team synergies was a lot of the interest for me and many others. If all skills were available all the time it would be no where near as a fun, deep, and skillful game.

Having an 8 skill bar goes both ways. With only 8 skills to bring, you need to plan your build carefully, but when you do finally have it ready, you're left with a very simple combat situation. You only have 8 skills to pick from, and it's not hard to know when to use which one.

Having all your skills available at all times requires no planning at all, but the "skill" part comes in knowing when to use which skills.

Each format has its own cons and pros, and neither is really superior to the other in terms of rewarding player skill.

This is one of the reasons GW is superior to other activated-skill games (such as MMOs). Loads of options for a given effect.

- I wish RPGs would develop to direction of FPS's. One click to prime the grenade or meteor, choose location with mouse, hold button down for power and launch by releasing. Judgment is required on every step and the game can develop coordination. Instead we have one skill for flare, one for meteor, one for bit bigger flare, but everything is mutually exclusive and works by clicking that 1 button on your keyboard... and it always hits. Yawn.

Disagree. The deepth of skills was the meat of the game. Collecting them was enjoyable for pve and implementing them is great fun for pvp. However the balance issue is another story...