Fansite Friday #38

Personally I prefer the way they are going to implement the new system, since in this way people that do not belong to guild are able to get all the skills without the need of spending hours in a city just trying to find a skill ring and a skill charm. People that belong to a guild would still be able to get them faster since their friends would help them finish the quests faster.

My only suggestion is that they would give us choice between the skills that we are going to be awarded and not have a fixed skill for every quest.

Excuse me, but you just assumed yourself a n00b. Maybe this is where the argument has gone awry. Obviously you are already a part of the gaming community and also a part of the exponentially smaller posting community. In few ways could you be considered n00bish, especially with such a grasp on the situation at hand.

Maybe I should refrain what I mean by newbie. I'm talking about the large majority of players who you end up seeing in so many MMORPG's today that log in without reading anything into the game and start their way. Some of these people have never played an online game before, and many more have probably never played a game with so much depth as an MMORPG. Imagine logging into an online game for the first time and being bombarded with quests and objectives before you've ever learned about the wsad controls. By the time you finally get your first skills and start moving on, you've just barely learned how to control your character. Granted, Guild Wars is a much easier interface than many games I've seen, but how much of a difference can it really make to a person who doesn't know the functionality of the game? You would figure that by the time such a person entered post-searing ascalon, they'd have learned so much that it wouldn't be worth starting over with a new skill line.

Of course, not all new players are like this. People with a fair amount of competence can enter a game and learn the ropes in an hour or less. But, doesn't it strike you as odd that so many elementalist use the fire line? I do believe that I've only seen one true water elementalist the entire time I've played in the PvE, and only a few more earth or air. There has to be a reason behind such a massive fire elementalist popularity, and the roots of the game should be the first place to look.

True, but is this because of the way you can learn skills or because of the poor skill selection?

Excellent point. I'd say it's some combination thereof.

Obviously if skill selection is poor, then people are going to be typecast, as even the greenest newbies recognize when a skill isn't doing anything.

But assume that skill selection is reasonably balanced. Now, how many skills do you need to hand out because you've taken choice out of the system? Look at a new Warrior with a 'balanced' selection of eight skills - two sword, two axe, two hammer, and a couple 'general' skills. Something like what Warriors currently get.

Is that creating diversity and choice? A Warrior can choose between sword, axe, and hammer, sure - that's a good start - but half of their skill bar is as dead is it comes. You need to be handing out fifteen, twenty skills before a Sword Warrior has to even think about what skills to take with them. Up until that point they're just thinking about finding eight playables.

If you added even a little bit of choice (picking between a sword skill, and axe skill, a hammer skill, and maybe a skill point), then characters can get their eight playables much more quickly and start to move into the 'making choices' range.

Combine this with other issues with the system (path dependence, making skill points trivial) and I just can't get behind it. Anything with path dependence leads to all sorts of stupidity in the long run. Something about learning a skill from a trainer causing irrevocable damage to your character doesn't sit right in a game that lets you undo every decision you make. But, hey, if that's what people want then that's what we'll get, and I'll just game the system as always.

Peace,
-CxE

0.0 good point. personally I'm all for quest-based learning, with options on skills to get, and for skills coming before the skill trainer. I seriously think GW should consider keeping all the skills at the same skill trainer, and make skills available as a reward to a major quest that couldn't be obtained until further on. Regardless, too many fire elementalists are coming out, too many conjure phantasm Mesmers are appearing, and too many sword/axe warriors are around (although I think hammers are horrible anyways).

But, Imagine this. You enter the mission just after Borlis Pass (that one where you have to light all the torches) and are given your objectives. At the end of the mission, you gain 1000 xp, 1 skill point, and a choice between 3 skills that could be obtained from trainers later in the game. Just like xp and skill points, you couldn't obtain all those skills from repeating the mission three times. These skills can be found, however, at the skill trainer in Lion's Arch. If you do the sidequest and achieve it, you get 1000 xp, 1 skill point, and a choice from a different 3 skills. Those skills would be found from the trainer in Denravi. This way, you can still obtain skills earlier in PvE without going all the way to the trainer, but to achieve the skills far later in the game, you would have to prove yourself in the more challenging sidequests as well. I don't see a point in giving spells as rewards for simple "green exclamation" missions, since they are potentially out of the way of a player hoping to get through the storyline.

Irrevocable? It sounds like here you are disputing whether or not their should be trainers, not whether or not skill charms should be removed. I think trainers are absolutely necessary for the decision-making aspect to this game. I also think that, if the amount of spells learnable from missions is limited, trainers will still be used to add variety.

Here's what I believe would be best from what I've read so far.

1. Major Quest Skill Rewards
2. Options between skills for a reward
3. Skill rewards are for skills only obtained by trainers later in the game
4. Skill rewards cost the skill point gained
5. The option is available to not take a skill and leave with the skill point, but a player can do the mission again and use a skill point to learn those skills later on
6. Trainers stay just as they are
7. Skills learned from trainer grow in gold costs each time, but not Quest Skills
8. Skills from trainers still cost 1 skill point
9. Skills can be unlearned to redeem 1 skill point, but costs at trainers remain or quests for skills must be redone to gain the skill

Not in the slightest - What I'm saying is that when there are ways to acquire skills that require skill points as well as ways that do not have any requirements, then the ways that don't require skill points will always win out.

If they don't want skill points to matter, just take them out of the game. If they want skill points to matter, stop adding workarounds. It's that simple. Both sides have their strong points, and while I prefer using skill points (since that can create hard decisions) I really don't care which side they come down on as long as it's consistent.


I agree wholeheartedly, which is one of the reasons I greatly dislike skill acquisition systems that obsolesce the trainers. A player should not feel like he's gimping his character in the long run by shopping at a trainer. Under the charm system, every skill point spent on a skill was a skill point wasted - you could just get a ring and save your skill points. Under the 'free skills from quests' system, and skill that you can learn from a quest should *not* be learned from a trainer, since that would similarly waste a skill point.

They've gone through the effort to try and make skill points be something valuable - you have to level up to get them, they're a limited resource, etc - then they add these mechanics that completely avoid having to spend that resource. Why they would do that is seriously mind-boggling.


Right - the proper course of action is to get every skill that you can get for free, for free - then use the skill trainers to fill in any gaps, to learn skills that you cannot get for free. How relevant the skill trainers are is inversely proportional to the depth of free skills being handed out. If 'most' skills are available as quest rewards, skill points are a joke, just being used to fill in the gaps.


I agree with that list wholeheartedly - I believe such a system would be optimal. It maintains the integrity of skill points and the value of skill trainers, while also perserving the value of questing for skills for all characters. It has pathing independence which lets people learn skills from a trainer without worrying about finding it for free later. Plus it has the undo button, refunding a skill point, which is your failsafe against mistakes, nerfs, and all other unforseen circumstances. As an additional bonus, it is remarkably similar to what is currently in the game, meaning that changing to such a system would be incredibly realistic.

I hope they do.

Peace,
-CxE

I agree. But there also shouldn't be too many skills right at the start of the game, the first hours are meant to teach the basics of the game, and new players shouldn't be overwhelmed by choices.


Nice ideas!


I'm not so sure how well would this work with unlocking skills for PvP chars, it could make it too easy to learn all skills. Especialy with the ability to change your secondary proffesion.
Don't missunderstand this, I hate grind and artificialy prolonged play time, but nothing should be for free. Sure, you had to pay more for every skill, but gold isn't a problem to get.

Thanks, It's (in my opinion) a combination of all the ideas people can seem to agree on. And yes, I see your point... I could see a lot of programming hassle in that, and only a month until retail! wow guys... one month until preorders get to play for real!

Right, but remember the other side of the coin - lowbie Ascalon is a tutorial area, and you don't teach people anything if you don't give them the opportunity. If skill trainers are going to be an important part of skill acquisition, you're not doing anyone any favors by avoiding them entirely in Old Ascalon. You want to introduce things gradually, not avoid the topic then thrust the actual mechanics on people once they 'graduate'.

Instead of handing out a couple free skills, give them a couple skill points and walk them through spending those skill points on the newbie skills. The net effect is the same, but by actually introducing the interface you're acting as a tutorial. It's the difference between holding someone's hand as you walk them through something, and just giving them the net result without teaching anything.


Well, what is supposed to be the 'work' that goes into unlocking a skill - earning a skill point, or finding someone who can teach it? If it's the former, then you're advocating a character slot devoted to creating and deleting characters to earn skill points quickly and rush to the trainers to unlock neccessary skills. If you're in favor of skill refunds, then you're advocating people refunding their skills to unlock new ones.

I'm clearly in favor of the latter. The important step is being able to access a skill in game, not earning enough skill points. Having to create a new character to replay everything up to that point, just to get more skill points to unlock skills with, is pure grind and doesn't accomplish anything. Letting people switch their skills around at a nominal gold cost, unlocking skills *they've already found* in the process, acts as a gold sink and avoids the 'create a new character, run to trainer, delete' stupidity.

Peace,
-CxE

Suddenly my mind has been swayed. I like what you're saying, only... gold will still have to aggregate with each learned spell, or else people would just lose all their spells to buy all the new ones for 10g, then go back to the outposts to reobtain them.

It would be really nice to know this input is being heard. Are you out there, Gaile?

Perhaps - you'd still have to re-learn all the skills you actually want in the end.

Remember that the basis for comparison is to create a brand new character and sprint them to the advanced trainers, and if that's the case every skill is going to be dirt cheap once again. So in any case it'll cost more gold to refund / rebuy skills with skill refunds, but less time - I guess you could say that with skill refunds, gold is the currency via which skills are unlocked, while without skill refunds it's just raw time running new characters around.

The model I like for unlearning skills is effectively the inverse of the learning skills model. The price to learn a skill is ten gold per skill point spent, inclusive - the first one costs 10 gold, the second 20, the third 30, etc. I'd propose that the price to unlearn a skill be ten gold per *unspent* skill point, inclusive. So if you had 50 skill points, all used, unlearning one skill would cost you 10 gold, the second skill would cost you 20, the third 30, etc.

The upswing of this is that the price of replacing a skill is a constant equal to 10x the number of skill points you've earned, plus ten gold. If you had 50 skill points earned and 20 spent and you wanted to unlearn a skill, it'd cost you 310 to unlearn a skill and 200 to learn one. If you had all 50 spent, it'd cost you 10 to unlearn and 500 to learn. This makes it relatively uneconomical to swap your skills around too much once you have an advanced character.

Hell, it might still be more economical to just create new characters and run to trainers. =)

Peace,
-CxE

I'm not so sure if it's a constant. If you have 2 skill points, you spend one (10g), then unlearn that skill and learn a new one (20g), the next skill you learn, will still cost 20 gold because you only have one skill point spent. This person just unlocked 3 skills for 50g, whereas learning 3 bought in a row would cost 60g. That's very technical, and not very conventional, but still a hole.

It'd cost 60g to learn 3 skills with 2 skill points - 10 to learn the first skill, 20 to unlearn it (it's inclusive, the spare skill point left over costs to 10), 10 to re-learn your first skill, and 20 to learn the second skill, for 60 total. In the other order, it'd be 10 to learn the first skill, 20 to learn the second, 10 to unlearn a skill, and 20 more to re-learn a second, for 60 gold total.

Earning and spending 3 skill points, as stated, will cost you 60 gold. Actually, that's another property of scaling things this way that I missed - unlearning and re-learning a skill has the exact same gold cost as earning another skill point and learning a skill with it.

The price does start to get a *bit* cheaper once you start to unlearn multiple skills, though. Learn 2, unlearn 2, learn 2 unlocks 4 skills for 90 gold (at 2 skill points) while learn 4 costs 100 gold (at 4 skill points). Of course the cheap solution is learn 2 skills, delete character, learn 2 skills, for 60 gold - this scales up nicely once you're in the 20-30 skill range and it starts being a ton cheaper to re-roll than to unlearn skills.


I'm not sure it's technically a hole, since it only becomes cheaper to re-spend your skill points when you don't have any more skill points to spend - if you have unspent points you're better off just spending those. You're comparing the gold cost of retraining skills at a fixed number of skill points to the gold cost of actually expanding your selection of skills after earning more skill points. If you earn those skill points, then retraining becomes more expensive. So I think it's a false dilemma - the conditions are different enough that just comparing gold piece values isn't entirely fair.

The price of moving your skills around increases as you know more skills - that's the entire point. Low level characters (and players) need the leeway more than a player who has 50 skills to choose from.

You have to compare characters at different points in the game. Unlearning/relearning at low level is cheap, sure, but you can reroll characters quickly to unlock those. It's more costly for the skills that are further away from lowbie ascalon, but contrast that with the time spent running there over and over. Sure, you could unlock skills quickly if you could get a level 1 character to the advanced trainers - but is that a fair basis of comparison, when a freshly minted character can gain levels like crazy on the run there?

Are we really talking about how hard it is to unlock skills as though making it more difficult is somehow preferable?

Peace,
-CxE

It shouldn't be difficult, because skills are the bread & butter of GW. But it shouldn't be trivial either.

If the majority of skills would be buy able at the skill trainers, you could (once you learned all the skills of your first secondary proffesion) just refund all your secondary skills, change your secondary profession and warp from town to town an buy all the skills that you can.
You could learn most of the skills for all professions, without having to play with four of them! Sounds cheesy.
The only limiting factor would be gold. For which you had to grind. Not a very pleasant thought if you ask me.


The skills points as they are now aren't any good either, they need major revamp. For example, before the big wipe, my main character with over 400 (or was it even 500?) hours playing time and, all available quests completed and with about half a million exp had earned only 72 skill points. Not good at all.

If skill points would be more easily obtined there would be no need for a skill refund system.

(sorry for the double post)