The new skill system what do you think

I think most people will agree that the old system of charms and skill rings needed to be changed. What do you guys think about the new system where pvp characters can be created?

Personally I like the idea this means I really only need one slot for a PvP only character and the rest can be PvE plus I don’t have to do the same content over again for a different character just to pick up the same skilsl. This will also allow guilds to modify strategies even quicker since if someone has the skills they can just pump out a character and not have to level them up.

The only negative I can think of is that this will promote the sale of accounts someone goes through and unlocks all of the skills and then sells the account on ebay... I'm wondering how Anet will deal with this or will they just let it slide.

I would also like to compare this to the crystal system of the E3 event where you were able to test skills out easily and cheaply which this system and the ring charm system don’t allow for. The only reason that this is a negative is because it is increasingly difficult to get skill points and if you are not frugal about buying skills it will get very difficult to both be able to afford to buy a skill and have the a skill point to spend on a skill. There is of course a tradeoff if you make it easier to get skill points you also make selling accounts easier.

Personally it doesn’t matter to me if people sell accounts I never really liked the people who bought them but I’m not apposed to people making a buck.

I am also wondering how they will do armor crafting since people have to spend so much time crafting armor but then PvP characters get it for free... I feel kinda cheated because I had a PvE character i was playing against these PvP characheters. Mabye if they only wore lvl 19 armor and PvE characters got lvl 20 armor its not much of a diffrence hmm ... that doesn't sound like a good solution to me actually but i feel something needs to be done.

they stated that when you changed your 2nd profession it would be fairly easy to get new skills for the new 2nd

they also spoke of redoing the skill point distribution as well but did not give details

The bottom line is that you could have a primary character who has experimented with all five available secondary professions. That character will likely have good stock of skills in each of those lines. In fact, that character could have every skill in each of the five available secondaries. The character then, in ways not yet to be revealed, will be able to shift to a different secondary and take advantage of a long history of roleplaying character development.

Umm, I think AN ought to worry about more serious problems first. For example, I currently can't rename my pet. There's a flower in Denravi that doesn't look quite right. Oh, and let's not forget, there aren't enough frogs in the jungle. All three of these are far more serious problems, and far more worthy of AN's attention...

I like the changes in general. Skill rings needed to go, that much was certain. Twinking every new character with every skill they'd ever need? It made the whole skill system obsolete. Make people learn everything from a trainer, or grabbable with a capture signet.

I'm not a huge fan of having to unlock skills on PvP characters. I think it's a good sentiment, but it just makes people run characters through PvE over and over again, since you can only make a PvP version of a character you've already made. So it isn't like you can just slap together a quick Monk for PvP - you have to build him up in PvE before you can make a PvP one. Basically PvP characters just end up being residual memory for deleted characters, or versions of your PvE characters with better equipment. The new character creation interface is brilliant, it just needs some tweaking.

Skills as quest rewards are a poor mechanic at best. They stifle creativity and diversity, pushing players into pre-defined roles that they have to consciously break out of later. Everything else in the game is a choice, from classes to equipment. Why are skills somehow different? Why is every Elementalist a Flarebot, every Warrior a Sever/Gash machine? Give out skill points and let people choose their own path.

Peace,
-CxE

What about giving an option of which skills to receive after you complete such a quest? Basically.. have the quest npc be like a mini trainer, with a small selection of possible skills that you can learn as thanks for completing the quest. Of course, you'd only be able to choose one, and once you do, the quest will end, never to be repeated again on that particular character. This makes the quest npc like a mini-trainer, except instead of getting a much more flexible skill point, you get almost a skill credit, and so retain that crucial element of choice and skill diversity.

I suspect the philosophy here is, if you give too many choices to people too quickly, it's overwhelming. It's the same philosophy behind pulling options OUT of program settings dialogs -- the more that are there, the less user-friendly people perceive the program to be.

Now, personally, I find it irritating as all hell. I end up having to gconf or regedit settings I used to be able to tweak within a nice dialog. But apparently the user-friendliness gurus have spoken and this is the way it is to be.

Anyway, back to GW -- the low level areas are obviously designed for newbies who just don't know what is or isn't a good skill. Giving them some good skills is probably better than letting them fill their skill bar with Ether Lord, Unnatural Signet, etc., then getting frustrated when they can't kill anything, and worse when they can't refund the skills they didn't know better than to pick to begin with. (Of course, that touches on another problem the game has...)

For anyone who knows what they're doing, it bites the wax tadpole. What would be really nice is if they could find some way to accomodate everyone without overwhelming anyone. (Don't ask for much, do we?)

The new way in which PvP characters can be created be unlocking skills and items is probably one of the best things that A.Net has implimented in Guild Wars so far. And now that skill charms are gone, it's balanced from every aspect. I also like the idea of being rewarded with rare skills for doing quests. Ang getting rid of skill charms also subdues that problem of bypassing the skill point requirement we discussed earlier.

This most recent event's weekend event really had, to me, a good idea. I liked building a character and then PvP-ing. Honestly, it was very nice that I was able to build any character I wanted and then go play PvP without spending 2 weeks leveling it up to 20 and finding the skills all over the place, etc.

Now, this of course presents a problem: ain't that a bit unfair to those who put in those two weeks to level up a character, travel around the world 9 times to get skills, etc? The answer? No! Those people, while having the same skills, are also going to have unique weapons, etc.

Now I understand that you could, theoretically, apply runes 'n' bowstrings 'n' stuff to your weapons, and that you got to choose amongst all the armor sets when you created a BWE PvP character. That isn't fair and it throughly discourages PvE despite a limitation to the PvP arenas. But perhaps a good compromise would be that there is a standard set of skills for PvP characters, and that like 10-20 of a classes skills are reserved for PvE build characters, as well as special weapons attachments and runes and varied armor types being reserved for the PvE characters as well.

That'd be a good idea. The goal is to provide people with choices in the skills they learn and use.

I'd say that once you've gone that far, why don't you just turn the quest reward into access to a specific skill trainer, and hand out a skill point as a quest reward?


Agreed. But just because there's a danger of too many choices doesn't mean that you need to go to the other end, of no choice. Sure, giving a player a choice of a dozen different skills can be daunting, but even the greenest of newbies can make a choice between swords, axes, and hammers.


Interesting take on things. If that's the case, why are they handing Monks PBAoE Smiting skills? Why are they giving Mesmers Shatter Delusions, a skill that would just be bad if it weren't counterproductive?

Sure, a new player in the lowbie area might not know the difference between a good and a bad skill, but if that's the concern why are we handing them bad skills that'll teach bad habits? The last thing you want to give a Monk who's just learning his trade is PBAoE. Are you trying to teach your healers to run into melee?


Of course. Allowing people to refund their skills is a huge failsafe that I'm amazed hasn't made it into the game yet. You can refund attributes, we're talking about refunding entire *classes*, and you can't refund a skill?

The mind boggles.


Like, you know, giving out a couple of skill points for completing a newbie quest and walking them through the process of spending those skill points on two of half a dozen or so newbie-friendly skills?


They promptly replaced bypassing the skill point requirement via a ring with bypassing the skill point requirement via a quest. They both have the same problem - bypassing skill point requirements. Give out more skill points, but make 1 skill = 1 skill point universal. They got this right over a year ago with skill gems.

As long as there are ways around spending skill points, those ways will be preferred. If they want skill points to matter, they have to force people to use them. If I have the choice between spending a skill point at a trainer or getting a skill for free off of a quest, it's a no brainer, I do the quest. That's the entirity of the problem.

Peace,
-CxE

I did think about that, too. The reason I didn't suggest it being an actual skill trainer with a real skill point as a reward is the assumption that quests will be much easier than leveling for skill points. Of course, I'm also assuming that the time spent on that quest is noticeably less than time used leveling. So.. as those quests are easier to do, the rewards should be proportionally smaller.. and the "smaller" in this case would be the penalty of less flexibility in what skills you can get. But, you would still have a choice in the matter.

This all hinges on the assumption that relative values should be kept proportional in measuring how much reward you should get for one act when comparing it to another act. I think my language is quickly becoming convoluted, so let me rephrase this?

This suggestion of mine assumes that the work used to gain one skill point has a certain value, and this "value" becomes a standard throughout the game. So, since the work doing a quest is less, the value gained is less as well, and less rewards should be offered for it.

The problem with this is a question of "why do these values have to be kept constant and maintained through that standard?" Since I assume we're talking about lower level quests, you can very well ask also why you can't just reward a skill point for completing a quest, and look at it as sort of a "freebie." So, it becomes less of a question of "why not?" and more a question of "how easy do you want the beginners' experiences to be?"

So.. to me, the first option of making it a pseudo-skill point (limited choices skills with a skill "credit" with one particular quest npc) would be closer to maintaining the standard that the game has right now. The second option of actually just making it a real skill point would make the game noticeably easier for beginners, as their options instantly broaden, and that "skill point" can be used anytime, anywhere.

In short.. how challenging do you want GW to be?

(Disclaimer: Since I know that some of you are definitely intelligent enough to pick out the difference between "challenging" and "effort," I do know that leveling doesn't take much challenge, and requires something more along the lines of effort. At the same time, though, where do you draw the line between having things handed to you freely, and earning them for yourself? There is definitely a point where having things pour into your lap starts to degrade the value of the thing itself..)

A question to you folks - are skill points a necessary mechanic for the game?

I'll take on this question from two perspectives, pve and pvp play.

From the pvp perspective...no. All of PvE is just grind so you can unlock the various abilities in your pvp characters and then play around with builds, class combinations, etc. The entire skill point mechanic from that perspective is just another hoop you have to jump through.

From the pve perspective...maybe. It seems the point is to limit the options you have in terms of skill combinations while you're growing more powerful while still giving you the ability to choose various combinations. Said another way, its there to balance the fact that skill trainers will have access to more skills than the devs necessarily want you to have all at once at any given point in the game.


The way the new skill system is structured reminds me a great deal of CCG's. You have to 'work' (buy expansion packs) to get a given ability (card), but once its there, you can use it at will. Thought of this way, the value of acquiring a skill is really very low, since even once you get one, you'll have to learn how to use it well, fit it in whatever strategy you were using for your character, possibly reequip or re-attribute your character to make full use of it, etc.

As such, i would personally prefer something like the 'unlock all skills' function be available from the start of the game, since i feel acquiring the skills doesn't really add anything to the game. Using them intelligently is where the fun and challenge come from.

That depends entirely on perspective. For many of us, PvE isn't "grind" it's part of the game. And a fun part, at that. I think grind has become such a hot buzz word that people have forgotten what it really means. The PvP characters are a great idea, but Guild Wars is not just about PvP. It's been obvious from the very beginning that ArenaNet wants playing through a storyline and discovering things as you go to be part of the experience.

While Guild Wars posesses many aspects of a typical competitive online action game (Counterstrike, Team Fortress, etc.) it isn't one and was never meant to be. Missions, quests and skill points aren't simply obstacles set up to get in your way. This is not just a competitive online game, it's a competitive online RPG. In other words, it's about beating down the competition with a character you've created from scratch and developed through a series of adventures. What it's not about is beating down someone with a character who already has everything. Giving anyone that option completely defeats the purpose.

Yes, I know there are many people who consider having to earn anything a needless "grind" to be completed before they can start having fun. To them, PvP is the only thing that matters and anything they're required to do in order to be competitive is simply a hoop they have to jump through. That doesn't mean that ArenaNet is obligated to change the entire basis of their game and allow them to ignore such an integral part of it. GW may not be a typical mmorpg, but it's still an RPG. If the concept of having to develop a character over time is entirely pointless to them then it means, quite possibly, that these people are playing the wrong game to begin with.

Lunarhound- I think you're making good argument (I've made similar ones myself, in threads from months back), but I don' think they're kernal to the issue at hand.

The problem I take issue with is changing from the skill charm/ring system (admittedly flawed, but with an obvious-and-oft-mentioned fix) to the new Quest reward system, and trying to spin it like it benefits PvP players . First of all, let's take a breath and realize we haven't even seen what it will actually look like. Maybe it will operate like Old Ascalon...maybe not.

I wouldn't put myself in the ranks of only PvP or only PvE. I love the model from this game- I really like doing the missions, I just make it a point not to do Riverside with Ensign anymore. I also really like the PvP, and in the end, I think it's the PvP that's going to keep drawing me back in. But I like the model- I want PvP and PvE.

And let's look at the change closely- what do you gain as a PvP character? The only skills you know are skills your characters have already learned. This makes your PvP account a storage space for skills. A PvP character is nothing special, it saves you the time of having to level up a new character and the minimal (by the end) cost of crafting new armor. Big whoop.

What have we lost?
We've lost skill charms, the ability to learn any skill quickly and cheaply.

To the person who wants to PVE exclusively, this is a boon. Great, I was probably going to try and learn every skill in the game anyways, so now ALL my PvP characters know skill X.

To the person who is looking to rush through PvE to get to the PvP fighting (and they are out there), you have forced their hand. They now have to go find and learn the skill. Before they just needed the money to buy a ring and a charm.

A fundamental aspect of skill acquisition has changed, and I'd say it falls squarely in favor of spending more time exploring. I don't think that's a bad thing, but let's be clear about what's happened.

(Now if they make more trainers available with more skills, so it's easier to learn the skills, then a lot of this will be moot anyways- but I'm not going to get into predicting 2 steps ahead of where we are.)

Oh, I agree with you, Scaphism. I wasn't trying to assert that it benefitted PvP players, I was simply responding to the poster immediately before me (and all those with a similar view), who was arguing in favor of all PvP characters being able to have every skill unlocked right from the start. It's a proposition that I just don't think fits the game at all.

Unlocking every skill from the start is patently ridiculous.
Giving the option to us for a weekend was a nice freebie.

In the end, it is a RPG, and you are supposed to develop your character, to an extent. That extent is what differentiates it from other RPGs out there- it's not the never-ending development of EQ or other grindfests, but it's not the plug and play action of Counter Strike or Unreal Tournament either.

It's a competetive game, and keeping the time needed to develop your character down means that you can get to the competetive level sooner. If I wanted to play a level-fest, I'd find one. If I wanted a game where everything is unlocked from the start, well, I'd play checkers. I'm not interested in those, so I'm going to stick around and hope Guild Wars is as good as I've been anticipating it will be.

From whose perspective is getting a skill point a better reward? From a PvP player, certainly, taking a skill point is a better deal - they get to pick up the exact skills they want much more quickly. But for a skill collector? Just getting the skill is likely a better deal - taking a skill point will end up costing them more gold in the long run.

So giving a skill point is more versatile but also more expensive.

Though generally, I'll agree with you that getting a skill point is a better reward than just getting another skill - it lets you build your character's power more quickly, and that's the metric via which we have to measure these things.


That makes sense, but I don't know that it's really neccessary. The cost in time/effort to get a skill point is already highly variable - skill points from early levels are incredibly easy to come by, but once you hit 20 the number of points available slows to a crawl. Skills from fame diminish quickly. I look at skills / skill points from missions and other quests as 'freebie' skill points, the baseline number of points that all characters are expected to get with minimal to no effort. You need a certain number of skills just to get going, so it makes sense to 'price' skill points on a sliding scale.

You're also trying to satisfy a bunch of different market segments, from PvP players who want to get their skills *now* and go, to those who want to learn every skill in the game. So costs have to fluctuate.

What bugs me most about these alternative reward systems is how they introduce serious path dependence into the game. Skill points are by all counts a limited resource, and because you can't refund them you never want to spend them if you don't need to. If you can learn a skill from a quest, you want to avoid learning it from a trainer, otherwise you've permanently wasted a skill point.

Likewise there are no decisions to make in your character development. It isn't like you're choosing between this skill or that skill or whatever - you're just taking freebies, skills that are identical to what everyone else has in the game. Skill points only get spent on skills that are not available as freebies, which according to this fansite friday are going to be fairly rare.

So in simplest terms what I want is a path-independent system that encourages player choice and diversity. Giving out free skills without skill points introduces serious path dependence that removes player choice from skill acquisition. While I'm not sure what an optimal solution would look like, it should address these two concerns.


Well, I'll disagree with you on the second point - giving out raw skill points, in a vacuum, makes the game more complicated for a beginner but allows a veteran to build up their characters more quickly. Giving skill options is more in line with what is in the game right now, but still has those path dependence issues that I don't like at all.

I like the idea that Nash brought up in another thread - basically give the player a choice of learning a skill free of charge, or just giving them a skill point. Basically you either give them an unspent skill point, or a spent skill point and the skill in question. The difference would be in the gold cost - spending your money on a different skill will cost you several hundred gold in all likelihood, while just taking the skill offered saves you that money. But more importantly, at least from where I'm sitting, it preserves path independence. My gripe with skill trainers is the same as my gripe with rings - if you give people freebies that's all that'll get taken.

Peace,
-CxE

I was thinking more along the lines of jedi knight 2, but thats neither here nor there.

With the ability to create pvp exclusive characters who have access to all your unlocked skills, i argue that it is precisely about beating down someone with a character that has 'everything'. The option is already there. It now becomes a matter of spending enough time in game to collect everything you need or want, which is why i again point to the CCG comparision. Skill points in this instance are the currency you use to buy your new card.

So - the question is why have currency?

As I said, progressing through the pve game, currency limits your options; I suppose this could be a difficulty balancing factor. More realistically, its a time sink. Having x skill will almost certainly not make a given mission appreciably easier if your character is level 1, and by its converse lacking x skill will not make it harder. Especially given the amount of 'free' skills that are available via quest rewards - even in old ascalon this would be enough to create a viable (if not terribly powerful) pve character.

Also consider that the rate at which skill points are awarded and the fact that you can run characters that are low level to cities they can purchase skills means that you will be seeing a lot of quick, low level characters escorted to some skill trainer that has whatever skill that account lacks to round out a collection. This effectively devalues your game 'currency' - skill points.

So, why have it? You have a mechanic which bypasses it in one instance but is tied to it in another. However, you've set the system up to be bottom-heavy, making it so that the fastest way to gain skills is going to be to create low level characters and save skill points to gain things you haven't gotten before with other low level characters.

You and some others have argued that it is an rpg, and thus cannot be divorced from character progression. Consider this proposal then - once a character reaches ascension, and presumably finishes the pve storyline, that account unlocks access to all skills ala the bwe. This way you keep skill points as a pve limiter so that no one character is too versatile at a given level (they wouldn't be too powerful regardless - the skill balancing system precludes this). You also remove the somewhat pointless low level timesink in order to unlock the rest of your skills after you completed the storyline.

Laz