Fansite Friday #38

http://www.mmorpgitalia.it/guildwars...=inc_ff_38.htm

yay for skills being quest rewards! i wish gaile could have given some hard details about availability and the whole profession changing deal though..

I'm really happy about the 4v4 teams. Sometimes the 20-30 minute wait time for getting an 8 person team together.. as well as what Scapes call the drama of it all makes me want to scream. This will definitely help with the "pick-up and play" aspect of the game..

Thank you Gaile.

Can't say I'm too excited about getting skills as quest rewards - wow, Shatter Delusions, can I really mommy? I know it's a brainless quickstart, but is dumping Flare on every new Elementalist, or Sever Artery on every new Warrior really promoting diversity or creative play? Why don't they just hand out skill points and let people choose their paths?

Since we're, in theory, allowed to re-roll our secondary profession (which is a great addition), can we also re-roll our skills? I am a huge advocate of letting people do what they want with their characters, and getting obsolete / nerfed / trash skills out of their list is always a worthy goal. It would, of course, also promote diversity as every character wouldn't have an identical set of quest reward skills.

Organized 4v4 arena is an excellent addition for quick PvP runs. One thing to think about would be to make the random arenas act like the academy - that is, you can pair up with one other person who will be on your team once you're in the arena. That maintains the random aspect, but lets you play with / train a friend or guildie if that's what you're after. It might foster a bit more strategy than 'play a character designed to solo the other team' as well.

There are arguments for keeping things the way they are, though, so I won't push that issue.

Peace,
-CxE

ITS TORTURE! TORTURE I TELL YOU!

Anyway, this business of re rolling your secondary, I am not sure I picked that up correctly. Does this mean you could switch from a Ra/mes to a Ra/nec without wiping the character? (and as such gold and armor etc) IF this is true, someone please advise how this would work, and how one would go about it.

Voice acting? That is great, except I won't be starting a character till release so I'll just have to assume they did a good job on the voices.

Some people were wanting a dueling element added to the game (in other threads) I think that the 4v4 non random is about as close as we will get to that. So, I think it may make those people happy.

Thanks Gaile!

That one really excites me. My 8v8 matches have always seemed chaotic and frankly less strategic than they could be. I think 4v4 would be about the perfect size for making a tight, focused, coordinated team. And not so large that you can really be prepared for everything, either -- you need to pick and choose more carefully what you're really going to be prepared to counter. It sounds like more fun to me...

Only if you can pick your opponent. Then you can arrange a duel, as for the other three people, maybe a second and a couple of observers? I dunno, I don't think it's really going to make anyone who wants dueling implemented happy. I like the 4v4 idea, but it's not anything like being able to challenge someone to a duel. How we're ever going to resolve questions of honor, I just don't know...

What I liked:
-Voice Acting. Thank you, this was a big improvement. Next up: synching.
-4v4 Arena with choosable teams. Awesome! If past work is any indicator, this will be really well-done and is a great addition.
-Making skill points easier to acquire. Necessary if we're going to be rerolling our secondaries.

On the Fence:
-Rerolling secondaries. This helps monks, because there really aren't any natural secondaries. I can see how it is of some benefit to most players, but I don't really want people able to switch back and forth and back and forth as it suits them. That wouldn't promote diversity, it means there will be more and more "Flavor of the Month" PVE characters.

Didn't like:
-The explanation of new skill acquisition system.

I don't see how giving everyone the same or similar skills as quest rewards promotes diversity. Instead this reduces variety: If you give every new elementalist fireball as their new spell, they're all going to continue to use fire. How does that teach them that the ward spells are really effective?

The skills available from trainers in the early game already have a HUGE impact on how each profession is played. Giving out skills as mission rewards is just going to have more characters with the same skills on their bar. Continue to give skill points as rewards, and make more skills available from the trainers. Then we'll have more choices, and that will promote diversity. Don't usher us all along the same path.

Next is the claim that removing skill charms promotes diversity, and that the change BENEFITS PvP characters.

That's a bunch of hooey.

Skill charms were flawed because you didn't have to spend a skill point to use them, not because they taught you skills.

From the article:
I thought that was the point of the charm system- I can buy a charm of a skill I don't already know, so that I can learn a NEW skill.

Instead, we now have:
So this means if I learn Searing Heat with my Elementalist Mesmer that my PVP Warrior Necro would know it, if only he was an elementalist. How exactly is this better than giving me a charm of a skill I want?

Hoping and expecting wont provide variety. Teaching everyone searing heat as a mission reward only means everyone in the game is going to have searing heat when they beat mission one. Skill charms weren't reducing diversity, they were promoting skill choices. If you knew a skill was out there, you had to find someone who would sell you the charm. Now you have to go do the mission yourself, which is apparently the goal of the new policy.

Let's call it for what it is: It's a plus for people who enjoy exploring and looking for skills, but it's another hurdle for people who never enjoyed questing for skills to begin with. Skill charms were a prime way for people who didn't want to grind for skills to get them quickly. Now everyone who wants to know a skill is going to have to put in the same grind, beat the same mission, or get to the same trainer. I'm not saying it's a horrible idea, but let's not kid ourselves and say it benefits those who play PVP equally.

My impression is that you are misinturpreting Gaile; imo she is saying that quests (not the missions that everyone plays, but the quests that you can go on in the explorable areas) can give you skill rewards. This currently only happens in the pre-searing ascalon, but if it continues to happen throughout the game, and there is a similarly large concentration of quests as there are in the pre-searing ascalong, then one is going to find that different players do different quests for skills, probably based on which skills they want. One might guess that some dwarf at the top of one of the shiverpeaks has a quest for a powerfull water spell, etc etc.

So, just because most skills are available as quest rewards, that doesnt mean that they are available early in the game, or that they are easy to get. What it does mean, however, is that one doesnt need extra skill points for them (important if one has run out and not getting any more at level 20). This substantially improves the benefits to doing quests for a player aiming to collect all the skills.

And as such, I like it.

I like the idea of questing for skills because I would enjoy doing a quest featuring a story specifically related to the skill I'm attempting to learn. I think Sphynx is right that, with so many skills being available, different people will end up doing different quests depending on what they want.

First, you have your ordering wrong. For the *vast* majority of players, you'll end up doing the quest without knowing what skill the reward is going to be for. You won't 'just do the quests for the skills you want', you'll do whatever quests you happen to find. Only a small minority of the gaming public will read the guides on which skills are available where.

Second, the only limiting factor on free skill acquisition is time. There's absolutely no reason why a PvE player won't complete every sidequest for his class, and get all of the appropriate free skills.


You're right, it doesn't mean that at all. What it does mean, however, is that *every* character of the appropriate class can know the skill at no cost - there are no choices to be made.


It does mean that you need to be careful what you spend your skill points on - you don't want to 'waste' a skill point on a skill that you can learn through a quest.

I like how giving out skills makes for a practical reward for doing sidequests. I don't like how it typecasts characters and leads to 'wasting' skill points and the like. I'd much rather they handed out skill points for completing a quest, allowing a player to learn the skill they want instead of the same skill everyone else has. In combination with obscure skill trainers, this accomplishes everything that the 'skill rewards' system does, but with more player control and flexability.


I agree that quests of this sort are solid additions to the game. At the same time, I think that giving someone a skill point when they complete the quest, and turning the quest giver into a skill trainer that can teach you that specific skill, is just a better solution. It makes the quest reward worthwhile for all players, it gives players more control over what skills they know, it avoids typecasting every character into the same mold with the same skills, and it gets rid of issues like 'wasting' a skill point at a trainer when you could get it for free elsewhere.

Basically they already have a more extensible solution to what they want to accomplish, so I'm advocating using that instead of introducing kludgier mechanics with new problems. It's more consistent, more elegant, and just plain better.

Peace,
-CxE

I don't think I've misinterpreted Gaile. As you noted, the only place you gain skills as quest rewards is in Pre-Searing. Has anyone ever been rewarded a skill, free of cost, after the Searing? If they have, please let us all know, it would certainly enlighten the conversation.

Secondly, as Ensign pointed out (and I did earlier) if you give everyone the same skill, you're promoting uniformity, not diversity.
At the very least, make the reward a skill point and a trainer that teaches only 1 skill. If I don't want the skill, then I'll walk away with my one skill point. Because I guarantee you I never want to learn Ressurrect when Restore Life is available, or Seeking Blade when Savage Slash is available.

Finally, it still doesn't address the issue of PvP characters.
I have no problem giving out skillpoints as quest rewards, but PvP characters are still losing out in this change. To learn a skill, one of my PVE characters must have unlocked it. Before I could give him a ring and a charm- what was the problem with that system? (Outside of not costing a skill point, which I already addressed) It just means I have to grind for every skill in the game- rings and charms gave you a way to buy out of that paradigm. Personally I preferred the charm system, just make them cost a skill point. If you wanted to, you could make quest rewards a ring and a charm of a skill, instead of making the skill itself the reward? Who does that hurt?

But isn't that in and of itself a problem? If acquiring skills becomes utterly time-based, then isn't that a detraction from GW's idea of skill being more significant than time, since it'll end up being whoever has more time to grab skills has the clear advantage?

hi Ensign

regardless of how many and how easy the skills are to get to me that means a better choice of the 8 skills i bring to the table

rather than promoting conformity would not a larger choice bring less confprming as people experiment with the better selection of skills?

EDIT

it was stated that a great majority would be available at trainers as well which would cut quest time down

The game has a wonderfully conflicted relationship with 'grind' and time spent building up characters. Grind, character development, item acquisition, and the like are neccessary parts of the game - just look at the number of people who fear the level cap because it keeps them from grinding out more levels. The search for the next upgrade is a critical part of the game, that they can't eliminate entirely and still be successful.

But they don't want the item and skill grind to be the biggest factor of success. A good player with mediocre equipment and skills should beat a mediocre player with good equipment and skills. Granted, all else being equal the better equipped team will win. But when things are unequal player skill should dominate.

Is there a problem with making access to the best skills a time sensitive endeavor? Sure. Is it going to be game breaking? Probably not. Putting skill trainers in far off areas that people have to quest to seems to be perfectly reasonable to me. It'll take some more time to build up your character to PvP efficiency, sure, but that's part of what makes the game work - for better or worse.


Absolutely. Higher skill availability translates directly into a more diverse selection of skills used. There's a limit to this, granted, but we're not in danger of hitting that. If you give every Elementalist Flare for damage and no other choices, every Elementalist will use Flare. If you give a newbie Elementalist the choice of Flare, Lightning Strike, Stone Daggers, and Ice Spear, you'll see four different classes of low level Elementalists in some proportion that we can guess at. Crank up the number of skills available even higher, and you'll get even more diversity.

That's the whole point of giving players choices, so that they can make them and play the game in different ways. That's why I'm advocating skill choices from the very beginning, so that players can choose their path instead of being led down a single one. How many Elementalists use Fire not because they want to, but because by the time they are given any real choice they already have a skill bar full of fire skills that they're familiar with?

Peace,
-CxE

This would be easy enough to fix. Simply have the NPC giving the quest display the quest reward, so you'll know whether or not you want to bother undertaking it. I know people don't like comparing GW in any way to other mmorpg's, but it's worth noting that this method is used in WoW and works very well. You know before you ever hit the "accept" button whether you want the quest reward or not.

People will eventually be able to get every skill anyway, regardless of how they're learned. Whether it's through skill points, gems, or any other method, every skill is available to anyone who wants it. Especially now that it's going to be possible to switch secondary classes. If only certain skills were available through questing, it would promote uniformity but with nearly every skill available through quests (which is, I believe, the way Gaile said it would be) it's simply a different option for gaining them.

and you could decline the reward if you didnt want that skill and still have the fun of the quest and the exp on the way to completing it

maybe an automatic exp reward for the quest with an option on the skill to decline it

They really should have it an option...
"As a reward I can teach you one of these skills, or you can gain a skill point to learn another skill."
Pick your reward. Should be skills from different attribute lines to choose from, to allow for some more diversity.

I am strictly a PvE player so I won't trash you for wanting your PvP options...

I just don't see why they have to always please one side of an arguement. By nature of the diversity of players they want, they are going to compromise.

From what I have always known, they want this to be enticeing to all kinds of players. Compromise means nobody gets everything and everybody gets something. Most skills are available from trainers now. That means you get your points... you go see trainer...get what you want from them and move on. If somebody like me wants to go quest and get offered a skill as a reward, why not. I went for the quest. They won't offer me a quest if it isn't something my character can learn anyways. (that from pre-searing... two different characters talking to same person got different responses... ok if you do this I'll give you this...or I'll just be on my way ...aka.. no bother me)

There are a lot of things I don't like concerning some aspects of the game...still willing to accept them though. I can't have it all and why would I want to. Ideal = Utopian...never gonna get it....

They took skill charms away and made trainers....what's so bad about that.
You don't have to go bribing somebody to get...just go buy it yourself...and if you don't want to buy it....go learn it in a quest....hmm look options..... power through and do nothing you don't want except grab skills and level to go PvP or go questing and take your time and learn things from quests. Not like you'd be using most of the quest skills anyways.....you'd be too busy filling a niche for the guild or harassing somebody for not following the same team only play logic.

Either way...nobody wins..and everybody gets something. I'll be content wherever it goes..just as long as I get my one consideration out of it for my play style.

Actually, no. One only actually needs 8 skills on a character. If you are short of time, chose the skills you want, look them up on a nice website like GW Guru (which will presumably be adding quest rewards to the listings of how to get skills too), and just go questing for those skills.

The player who has spent lots of time questing for all the skills will have more flexability, but if the person who only has 8 skills has exactly the right set of 8 synergistic skills, then their build could still be better.

And when putting a PvP team together, one doesnt necessarily need all your players to be able to play any character type. A team is always going to be able to use a healer, a protection monk or a warrior tank. The players with fixed skills play their one character, the players with flexibility fill out the team with the other stuff it needs.

May be in order to promote diversity when the quest is finished and a skill is granted to the player then instead of getting a fixed skill then the player will have a choice between different skills from different attributes of both his primary and his secondary proffessions. For example if a Wa/Mo completes the quest then it would propose a skill from Strength a skill from Swordmanship a skill from Axe Mastery, a skill from Hammer mastery, a skill from Tactics, a skill from Divine Favor, a skill from Healing Prayers, a skill from Protection Prayers, and a skill from Smiting Prayers.

No choices? Only if you have less than 9 skills...


This makes me wonder, did you play in the Pre-searing Ascalon? Even there you can learn skills from 3 or 4 different skill lines per proffesion. I don't think that there will be a lesser diversity in skill quests later in the game.

The interview said that the majority of skills will be available through quests. Again, if it were only a few skills, it would promote uniformity among characters, but with nearly all of them being questable, it's no different than gaining skills any other way. Characters won't be "skill clones" any more than they would be by learning skills through trainers, or captures, or anything else. It seems that, for some reason, you're seeing the process of gaining skills through quests as if it will be a completely linear series of adventures, through which everyone will gain exactly the same skills at exactly the same points in the process. I don't think that's what's intended.

How much diversity is there when you have 9 skills? Or 10? Or 20? Especially when every other character has those same skills, too? You think the game will be so well-balanced that there won't be any skills that are flat out better than any others at any point in any circumstance? No, thanks to quest rewarded skills you'll either be able to choose from playing the most optimal build or playing a sub-optimal build like a scrub. There's no diversity there. But more importantly there's no player choice. You get the skills you're given. You don't get to decide at all what skills you want your character to have. They might as well just say "Okay, a Warrior gets Flurry at lv5, Frenzy at lv10, Battle Rage at lv15".

It's an awful idea. GW is supposed to be a game about flexibility and options. People shouldn't be learning that skills are something thrust upon them, they should be learning that skill points are what they use, personally, to make their characters better. Rather than passing out free skills - skills which, I might add, sound like they're again going to bypass the restrictions of the skill point mechanic just like skill rings and without all the potential for trading and customization that system entailed - something like what Nash suggests would be best. Let a character select from two or three preset skills or give them a skill point. Players who don't know the first thing about builds or skills need to learn how to make these choices themselves not to rely on the pre-selected "best" skills that the programmers, the developers, that someone else has come up with.

Quest reward skills trash the skill acquisition system, limit diversity and player choice, and create a game where rather than each player being able to make their own decisions and plans they're railroaded into a few pre-approved strategies and builds. If I wanted a game where my choices were all but made for me, I'd play something like EverQuest or Worlds of Warcraft.

In fact, this idea sounds ripped straight from WoW. Great, you're going to have a quest for all 450 skills in the game. Just what are those quests going to be? I don't think anyone's going to be too thrilled by the time they get done with the 30th FedEx quest or when, to get that Ice Prison you have to go and slaughter 15 Ice Golems. Then to get Rust you have to go and slaughter 16 Dolyaks. There's already plenty of that bland and unoriginal designing going on in the tutorial and now the bright idea is to expand it so it fills the whole game? If it's to be done, it's something that going to require a lot of time and effort to make sure each quest is unique, distinct, and special, not just a recolor with the serial number filed off, but we're only a month from release.

But they will, just as they are through skill trainers. Especially at lower levels. Every character walked out of the Academy a near carbon copy of any other similar character. Every Elementalist was a Flarebot. Every Monk a Smiter. Every Warrior a Sword war. And so on. Then, they got to choose from maybe 10 skills from each profession, many of which were available in the tutorial itself, at the nearest skill trainer in New Ascalon. So you add a few skill quests into the Breach and the other areas around there, so what? There's still not a lot of options for people to remake characters in their own image. And those characters that do acquire those skills are picking from a small list so odds are they'll be picking pretty similar things.

That's deformative. People are being taught bad lessons about what to expect from skills, what to expect from professions, and just how acquiring skills works. If you don't want a character that's using the plan that's been laid out as a good 'newbie' strategy then you're out of luck. You make due until you can get to a trainer or a quest that has what you need. If, of courese, you know that there's something else out there.

Because, let's be honest, we're the devotees around here. We check websites and walkthroughs and skill lists and all the rest. The average player simply won't. They'll bumble their way through the game, picking up skills that sound cool - and, remember, there's no way to try out those skills, you just get them, so you can only go by if you like the description, if you've heard or seen someone else use it, or through information on a site like this - going through quests as they find them. Not everyone is going to memorize the route to the best trainer for them. Not everyone is going to plan out what they'll spend each and every skill point on weeks before they can even play the game. So, rather than encouraging those people to think for themselves, to adapt to the game, to evalute skills, to sample them, to try new builds, new strategies and new characters, the game's decided that they don't want to overwhelm anyone with options so they're going to get their hands held.

Those lower levels, those first few hours, those first few skills, are what's going to set the tone for the rest of the game. That's where the average player is going to form their ideas and impressions about what works, about what's good, and about what they'll want in the future.

Not true. By the time Aiko hit the academy, she was doing much more damage with her bow than with any smiting skills. Only things she bothered smiting were the undead...

That's because the starting area is very small compared to the rest of the game, and there were a pretty limited number of quests available. I think this was done intentionally, because they don't want to confuse players with too much diversity right from the start, so they hand them skills that are pretty straightforward representations of what their class can do and let them get a feel for things. When they're out in the rest of the world, they can go after whatever skills they want, in whatever order they like.

I just don't understand the complaint here. If nearly every skill is available through quests, you won't get "carbon copies" any more than you would with any other skill system. With trainers, you choose which skills to buy based on what you want. With quests, you choose which quests to go on based on what you want. There's no fundamental change here. The only thing that's changed is that players have been given another option for gaining skills. The only thing that's really missing is a way to tell which skill you'll be getting before you undertake the quest.

In the end, every roleplaying character is going to be a "carbon copy" anyway, since there are no limits on how many you can have and the eventual goal in PvE is really to get every skill you can find. The idea, as I've always understood it, is to promote diversity through builds, not through trying to limit what skills people can obtain for their characters.

This is odd, I'm 100% certain when you do the quest skills in presearing Ascalon, you WILL run into npcs who teach multiple skill lines. If you're in a REALLY bad hurry to get to Seared Ascalon, then blam, you've just missed out on a potential 18 skills! Each from different skill lines. How's that for diversity? [18 is max potential if all the npcs you've talked to gave 3 skills per skill line but realistically speaking, it's more like 10-15]

There are different npcs for different skill lines, the air-elementalist is near the southwest mountainy area, go figure! ^_^ So sure, every elementalist's starting skills maybe fire line, but the air-ele is still there and they may take that path too! Also, despite the grinding aspect of why I hated normal MMORPG, this game's 'grind' to get quest rewards most CERTAINLY doesn't grind as hard as say, Ragnarok Online or WoW. I can see why some people want the 'uber 1337' skills right now with no grind or waiting and that such skills most certainly won't make you god-like since the game's system forces you to have a weakness and work as a team. However, just cause GW lessens grind doesn't mean it should have no grind at all. The current 'leveling grind' in this game for me is non-existant because I'm certain a week of casual gaming Guild Wars at 1-2 hours per day will surely reward me with a very good lvl 20 character. Now that's my kind of grind.

We do not know how the skill reward is being implemented yet. Its very possible that you get to choose among a list of predetermined skills, much like a skill trainer.

Personally I would rather that they give us access to majority of the skills in the early part of the game. I don't mind grinding for levels and better equipment but if i have to battle all the way to the western hemisphere (and possibly reaching lvl 20 by then) to acquire the key skills for my character, it kinda defeats the purpose. they said the fun only truly begins when you reach ascension but i think this is only true if you're a PvP-oriented player. It's fun I'll admit but I dont like the fact that the PvE part exists as a stepping stone to prepare yourself for PVP and this is becoming more and more apparant.

Yes but right now you don't get to keep all of them. You only get to keep those for your primary and secondary. I believe for a total of 14.

Extensively. Since you apparently haven't, I'll list the skills available to a new Elementalist here for your convenience:

Flare
Aura of Restoration
Fire Storm
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Lightning Javelin
Blinding Flash

If you have even the slightest amount of experience with the game, you would quickly realize that the fire skills are going to be much more effective than the air skills. Why? Because three seconds of blindness stops *maybe* two attacks, if you're lucky, for 15 energy, while Lightning Javelin does a virtually identical amount of damage to Flare (armor penetration doesn't matter at low levels) while costing twice the energy and having a longer cooldown.

Hence, *every* Elementalist is a fire mage. Why? Because that's the extent of his choices.


Or let's look at a typical Mesmer:

Conjure Phantasm
Ether Feast
Imagined Burden
Backfire

Well, at least they removed Shatter Delusions. Is there a lesson in here deeper than 'Conjure Phantasm > lowbie Ascalon'? I don't see it.

You want to know why there are so many people running around talking about how awesome Conjure Phantasm is? Look at the above skills. Consider what they have to work with, and *every* Mesmer player is going to swear by Conjure Phantasm. Why? Look at the options available.

Backfire? Sure, it's a skill that is patently awesome at killing stupid Monks (which, by my estimation, there are around a dozen that don't fit that criteria) but in newbie Ascalon how many targets are there for it? South of the wall, you're looking at a grand total of one - the Brood Caller Skales, which teach players the awesome power of Ice Spear.

Yeah.

Peace,
-CxE

First off, lets all sit back and realize that there is no way a PvP player will be able to thrive without PvE play, unless all skills were available at the start. Let us also consider that few PvE character can take on a normal PvP player in an arena if all skills were unlocked for those PvP players. In essence, there has to be an agreement between these two worlds to create one that is more equal.

Now, lets all take a look at our favorite console games. A player with integrity will play the game straight through without any help and enjoy every moment of it (given it's not some 2-month production from a company nobody has ever heard of). Most of those console games only offer the next levels, the next items, and the next abilities after they are unlocked. The player who works his way straight through gets all the enjoyment and thrills of the game, an assortment of abilities at the end, and bragging rights to all of his friends who don't have the Uber abilities he has. Then consider the person who hops on gamefaqs and pulls up the cheats page. He gets all the levels, skills, and abilities (some not even game-earned) right from the get-go. In a few hours, the excitement of the game wanes after beating the final boss on invincible mode wihout losing any ammo. It simply demystifies a game to get everything at once.

This being said, every mass-skill trainer offers more power to the PvP gamer, whereas quest-based learning offers more enjoyment to the PvE player. Skill charms were a way to rack up every skill in the game immediately, and obviously that is not what Anet wished for when they locked skills in PvP.

Offering skills as a quest reward is a dandy idea. I don't think enough people here are looking into the chances for diversity such a thing could offer. Imagine finishing a quest and being offered a choice of skills. Each quest could have two or three skills for each class to choose from (skills that could not be found anywhere but later in the game from a quest vendor), and far later quests could offer skills only available from completing those given quests. This would make way for quicker collection of arena-worthy skills for PvP players not interested in playing the quest-based game straight through, but still offer the bonus to the character who did.

PvP players may find this slightly unfair, since they too would have to play through to get those skills at the end. But what if those skills were offered as PvP victory awards? Those skills could be obtained by winning a certain amount of times in the arena, having a specific rank for your PvP character, or for being in a guild with a specific rank or rating.

If offered in this manner, PvP players would be able to focus on PvP without going through the entire game, and PvE players could still be powerful in the arena. I'd have to agree with the FF when they say charms are just a way to mass-produce skills for others who don't deserve them.

My final statement is that there should be an arena for level 20 non-PvP characters as well, since I'm tired of taking my warrior in and seeing thousands of others who haven't played fanatically spam the same skills I worked so hard for.

EDIT: oh, and who doesn't see the teamwork and challenge of making a quest, for example, where tons of casters are involved and the reward is backfire? As a mesmer, you have to fight through without such a beneficial skill to obtain it, both proving it's worth and making the game more challenging.

Pre-searing Ascalon is a very tiny portion of the game. Yes, characters leaving the starting area are going to be pretty similar but only because the number of quests there is limited. If the majority of skills are going to be available as quest rewards, that's a lot of quests once you leave the pre-searing era, meaning plenty of opportunity to diversify yourself, and pick and choose which skills you want, provided there's a way to know what skill you'll be getting before you take the quest.

Why does it even matter if you know what the reward is before you do the quest? It isn't like quests take long, the skill is free, and you want the XP in any case. What, are you going to see that it offers you a skill you don't want and decline to do the quest because of it? Please.

Peace,
-CxE

Lunar, think about what Ensign is saying.

if I'm a n00b player, and I spend 2 hours in presearing ascalon, only to discover that I'm incredibly awesome with just the fire skills, not the air skills, which do you think I'm going to start purchasing at the skill trainer when I get to post-searing? definately not the air skills. and what's the chance I'll even try water, since I've never seen it used before?

Pre-searing needs a few fixes. First off, you need 1 relatively equal skill from each line at the first trainer. if I get flare, I also want Ice spikes, stone daggers, and lightning javelin. Since these are the only 4 skills on the bar, all 4 will be played around with by a new player. Then, there need to be better-separated areas. when I'm running around in all that foliage, the flare works perfectly. but to reach more air skills, I should have to go through a more warrior-enemy-based area. This way, I start to realize the benefit of my air skills, then I recieve them. I start smiting down the warriors with my air skills... I feel so great! But then I get to the stone golems, and my air skills are barely smiting them... so I try Ice spikes out. amazing! it worked! then I run into the ice trainer, and I realize the almighty power of ice to knockdown and destroy the enemies around him. Soon enough, I realize I can't keep all 4 skills and remain effective, and I must decide what type of Elementalist I would be. diversity then is achieved. Then there could be the higher-end presearing areas where all different types are there, and the player realizes he can not be perfect, either.

A truly perfect Newbie area would show the strenghts and weaknesses of all the classes and let the player decide what style fits them best. "I can't knock down this beast, do massive damage, slow him, and blind him all with one skill line... I'm going to have to pick a strategy and get some allies!"

That's true, but that's not a problem with a system that allows questing for skills. That's a problem with the pre-searing Ascalon area. I'll agree that part of the game definately doesn't give players enough choices but it's a problem that's confined to that area and, I'd think, fairly easy to fix should they choose to do so.

If there are enough quests then, yes, that's exactly what I'd do. Just as I wouldn't spend money buying a skill that I don't want, I wouldn't spend time questing for one either. You say quests don't take that long, but that's something that's easily subject to change. If, as Gaile says, the majority of skills will be available through quests, there will be plenty of them and they're likely to vary widely in length.

But that's beside the point, anyway. The point is that pre-searing Ascalon is a tiny area with a tiny number of available skills and quests in comparison to what the rest of the game will have to offer. The problem isn't quests at all, it's the limited number of skills available through them. As long as there are plenty of quests that give skills as rewards, it offers just as much choice and possibility for diversity as any other system that's been used in the past.

Skill acquisition, especially in the early game, is the major determining factor in how characters and builds are formed.

How many skill choices do you have in lowbie Ascalon? None. If you know which profession combination you want to play, you learn all the skills for your primary, then all of the skills it lets you learn for your secondary. If you decide to skip the trainers, you aren't making a choice about skill diversity- you just denied yourself 2 or more free skills.

Rex and Ensign really hit on this issue- if you give away skills as a reward for a quest, where is the choice? If I can learn the skill for free, who in their right mind is ever going to turn down a free skill? And where does choice fit into that equation.

Rex really said it well right there. If you want to promote choices, then give choices, and that doesn't mean choosing what order to hit up all the freebie skill trainers in, because then it just becomes a game of connect-the-dots.

Why give up a flawed skill acquisition mechanic (rings+charms) for another flawed system? If we're going to change things, make them better.

Don't embellish. There is no way to learn every skill immediately through skill charms. They were a way for people with money, who had already worked through a fair portion of the game, to bypass the normal skill learning system to learn skills they wouldn't otherwise know. No newbie could buy every ring and charm for their profession, so don't suggest that's what everyone was doing. Buying a charm of Punishing Shot with your Warrior/Monk to give to your PvP ranger was not the problem. Skill charms rewarded people who knew which skills they wanted- they could bypass the time investment by spending money. Was it a perfect system? No. The flaw with that system was that charms cost 0 skill point to use, making them abusive. But the way questing for skills has been implemented means that even if you know what skills you want already, tough luck, you have to wait til you find the right trainer.

As for imagining what the quest and rewards will be like, I don't have to imagine. The only place we've seen it implemented is in Old Ascalon, and if it's implemented that way worldwide, I'm going to continue to make a stink about it.

If they tweak the system so that there are actual choices, I'll be quite happy. In that respect, Nash's suggestion, already taken up by Ensign and Rex, is beautiful. Complete a quest, and as a reward you get to choose: one of three or four skills I can teach you right now, at no cost, or walk away with a skill point to spend on your skill of choice elsewhere, even though it will likely cost you a couple hundred of your own gold to do so.

In the last day of Bwe I started a Mo/Me and I wanted to use Divine Favor skills. I've managed to reach Lion's Arch. When I reached Lion's Arch I've only found 2 Divine Favor skills (Divine Boon and Divine Spirit). There were 9 skills from the Healing prayers available. So I ended up putting my attribute points to healing prayers since I was not using any divine favor skills. This definetely does not cause diversity.

Without the help of friends in high places in the game, don't you have to find the trainer anyways? If skills from the Lion's Arch region are offered as rewards for Ascalon quests, and skills from the Denravi region were offered as rewards for Kryta quests, it would make it faster for somebody to collect the skills from the quests than get all the way to the skill trainer. I'm saying that all skills should be purchaseable, skill points should still be acquired like normal (or with your idea of skill or skill point option), but doing the quests will give you access to skills further on that you couldn't normally obtain without getting there. And yes, if the skills are like in pre-searing, it will be a real stinker. I was hoping skills would only be gained by major quests (the ones with cutscenes and 1k experience awarded) at the end of the quest or at the end of the side quest. Thus, you are still progressing towards more skills while playing the game and gaining skills from questing.

Skill charms could only come back if they too cost skill points, in which case such a system would be unaffected anyhow, just simply faster. I believe part of the total removal comes from the programming hassle of unlocking skills using charm necklaces, only temporarily giving it to the PvE character, but due to automation, "unlocking" the skill.

I also was not suggesting everyone got all their skills from charms. I was suggesting a guild would go and find rings, store them for chars, and then somebody could simply make a level 1 ranger, move past the academy, grab all the charms made from their guildmates with the rings, and learn them all without any work done. It's ridiculous to think somebody would buy all of their skills from skill vendors (that's 28,500g for all the skills for a primary, and 113,250g to learn all 150 skills for one character). But it's also ridiculous to think some guild would pump up a veteran member with skills for a new class so they could be quickly accustomed and enter battle.

http://forum.gwunderground.com/showthread.php?t=731

Links like this further prove my point. People were practically donating skills to one another, not an aspect of gameplay I think Anet was aiming for. Although, it was a pretty good idea.

That was under their old system. There's absolutely no way of knowing how many will be available and at what points from Old Ascalon up until Lion's Arch, once they've finalized everything. All I'm saying is that it's a mistake to assume that allowing skills to be given out as quests rewards automatically turns the game into a connect-the-dots that has a 100% probability of making everyone exactly like everyone else.

I should know better than jump into the middle of what has become a hot topic (I hope Gaile is reading this!). I need to say one thing from a perspective that has not been adressed.

I never liked online games till I got hooked into Guild Wars, so that being said I would classify as one of those noobs that are being referenced to in earlier posts. There were assumptions that the typical noob would be led down certain paths because of skill availabilty in pre-seared Ascalon. Wrong.

It took me a few fights in the arena, or a scrap or two with the guild I am part of, to become swiftly aware that certain skills do not work in certain situations. People are going to have their delusions shattered pretty quick when their 'excellent' Ascalon fire build goes up against some ranger in Fur lined armor with Winter loaded, maybe throw in a ward as well. Hmmm. please don't insult the typical noobs powers of deduction. You can't play this game long before you realize that there is more than just the crust in the pie. I am fine with the system proposed by Gaile with the option of more than one skill as a reward.

That's all.

And then there is the one choice not one of you has bothered to even think about or allude to.....

choice- use the skill or not use the skill

As halfy stated; it won't take a brain surgeon to realize that the skill you learn as a lowbie isn't going to cut it later, and that that realization will happen very quickly.
In another thread I even agreed that being able to have a choice in Pre-sear of a couple skill set options (for say 2-3 skill combos) would be nice addition (which I still think would be nice to have); but the whole thing boils down to that ONER thing you keep forgetting. Even though you got the skill, you are the one choosing whether to use it or not. I don't want to be the one having to stand back while someone who thinks they have a better grasp of the mechanics than me dictate to me how I should use my skills. It's still my choice. Not to mention, some skills getting crapped on so bad are not really that bad.
After spending so much time playing a game, people tend to forget whence they came from. Happens all the time no matter what game you play. "GIVE ME MORE..GIVE ME MEGA" ... It's the same thing with say D2. After going so far along the game,..people starting up new characters auto run them to high areas and level (yeah power) to just go for the biggest and baddest combos, completely forgoing the starts and condemning somebody for bothering with them.
I mean , really, if somebody is going to be considered that stupid as to never get a grip on things; they won't play long. Average person of average intelligence is a whole lot smarter than being given credit for.
All this changing is doing is giving more optional ways of getting what you want. You want to quest..go quest. You want to just get the skill and go...then go buy them from whatever trainer has them. Ever stop to consider that the balance in is that no raod is going to be "easy"?. Either you take the time to go quest and get them, or you just go to the next town and pay for the ones you want before moving on again. Take your pick...time or money. Both sides are paying a price; the only difference is what the price is.
That is the only way to fairly address the different player styles they want to invite. Fast and expensive..or slow and time costly.

Neither one of us is gonna get our holy rose out of it.