Secondary profession quests are nerfed...will it be fixed or not?

This is sort of a question, sort of a suggestion so I really didn't know where to put it, sorry if it's in the wrong place.

Anyways. My main point here is when you are able to change your secondary profession in the Crystal Desert. What happens for me, is I get to do the quests in Ascalon, and 1 or 2 in shiverpeaks, and from then on, no quests for my new secondary profession. So, my only option is to buy skills. Call me crazy, but getting a secondary profession for a few skills to experiment with, or needing 100s of skill points for all the cool skills to have fun with, just sounds insane to me.

If you really want to work out some of the grind...why not enable the quests to gain skills when you switch your secondary?

I see it two ways right now.

1. PvP who want to unlock skills rush to level 20, ascend, change profession, and work on all the new quests they have, to unlock as many skills as they want to for PvP. This way, they get the skills they want, without having to make 3 different characters and getting them far into the game(also, for the casual PvP player, not the hour on end grinders).

2. People who honestly want to work to get their skills for their secondary, still can, if they want to. They still have the option to go through the game as all the professions, get the skills the hard way, and get some self satisfaction out of it.

So, pretty much a lot of people are happy....though I have only 1 mind, so I'm kind of asking if this would be accepted in our community, or would it be too easy to unlock everything then?

I think it's too easy, because then you will see someone unlocked all skills in 1 character and that will simply make the choice for secondary class pointless.

Even if you could do all the quests again, there'd still be a large number of skills you need to buy/capture for your new secondary profession. This alone makes trying to unlock all skills with one character an unfeasible thing right now, and gaining levels over and over again in order to be able to afford those new skills is what ArenaNet claims they're trying to prevent.

I'm wondering about the skill point system in the first place. I say remove the skill point system altogether, 'levelling' beyond 20 is not a challenge, just grind - they currently enforce 'more hours spent' -> 'more skills' -> 'more power', and this is especially true for those who changed their secondary profession around.

glasszon, unlocking all skills on one character would be a perfect way to go about the game - the choice for secondary character -shouldn't- be critical anyway, and you can create whatever you want using PvP premades anyway once you have things unlocked. It's not 'too easy', since people have to face the exact same challenges as before, it's just 'less annoying', because they wouldn't need to repeat facing those challenges over and over again before they can start enjoying what they were working for.

I do understand there is reasons why it would be a good idea, but if it is too easy to unlock all skill in 1 character and hence allow them to change secondary whenever they want at no cost (unlocked all skills for the 5 secondary), you might as well allow people to create a role playing character at level 20 instead of just PvP. PvP is one thing, but PvM is another, don't forget by creating a PvP you cannot play PvM with that character (well, except the monster round in tomb right at the beginning).

I don't agree with you on the skill point system, you believe it leads to more hours spent = more power. But remember, a game that requires absolutely no grinding at all would not attract people for long, so some grinding is required for a game of this kind. Guild Wars is by far already got the least grinding required for a game like this and you are still complaining it's too much?

The only way you could do without skill point system is to NOT allow people to change secondary at all. Secondary profession are there to add more depth to the game, if you allow people to use all secondary profession with all skills on one character without much work, you have just removed secondary profession as a reason for people to remake characters.

Do you know what made people leave diablo 2? Why the so called "hacked" items in diablo 2 actually help people to stay playing diablo 2 longer than otherwise? The simple reason is because people finish everything and obtained all possible best item in the game that they have no goals to aim at, no reason to continue playing. The reason I used diablo 2 as an example is because it is in a lot of ways similar to guild wars. eg. only 8 people could be in a map at 1 time. If you remove all grinds from guild wars, you will find a lot of people leave this game after a short while as they got everything they need and don't like the PvP element in the game.

I just suggested this so that the people who want their PvP skills, without playing for 100s of hours, would be able to. Because it's been said somewhere that it takes about 30 hours to get through the story, and just the story. So doing all the quests for each profession means 180+ hours, assuming the person wants ALL of the skills and makes all professions into primaries. Of course, the people who really want all the skills, will get them eventually, but what about the casual player that gets their first character to level 20, crystal desert, in say...3 or 4 weeks due to lack of game time? That's just one character, so they really don't get the full gaming experience they should, since they payed $50(USD) to play, they should get all the features, and not 1/6 of them. Plus, it's not like someones going to change their profession 4 times in one day, and unlock all the skills. You still have certain skills that are primary only, plus elite skills.

I was just thinking it would be nice to enable people who want skills, to get them easily, and the people who still want to work for them the hard way, can. It's not like you're obligated to focus on one character, and change the profession enough times to get all the skills in the game. Plus, it allows people to sort of beta test their future PvP build, since they have to go through the game again(lacking the storyline missions) to get all the skills they want, and PvPers would probably be the main group to use this sort of feature.


Otherwise, it seems pointless to change your secondary so you have to work hard, and grind out levels to buy all the skills you want, when it is just as easy to make a new character, if you have the time. Either way, it's not for the casual player who spends a few hours online every week, because they're faced with hours of monotonous grind(which no one wants to do in their few spare hours) or they have to keep recreated characters, with new profession combos and play the same missions over and over.

it's already easy you can unlock all the eliete skills for a class you never made and RPG character out off, and you can buy skills from places like Drokonars which is kinda hard to get to.

How do you unlock elite skills for professions you haven't played? I thought you could only cap elite skills for your primary profession(which is why they made primary unchangeable...)?

You can capture any elite skill with any character.

Ooooh...maybe I was thinking of runes, where you can only use them on your primary...

But you forgot quite a few things, the first thing is. Have you ever done Old Ascalon mission in level 20? You could do it 10X faster than at the level it is intended for, so by allowing people to do this, you basicly give them a quick way to unlock all skills without having to work much at all. I don't think anyone should expect a game like this to be truly skill based and not time spent. (I know that's what ArenaNet says, but there is only so far you can go in cutting down grinding time without driving away all the people who just want PvM, remember the only reward in PvM is experience and items, if they can get maximum experience required and best item available in a hurry, then what's the point on continuing PvM without waiting for the expansion?) If you want a game that requires absolutely NO grinding at all, obviously you are looking at the wrong type of game and you should continue playing counter-strike rather than a RPG game.

Well ther is some bad information if I ever heard it.

The skills have to be of your profession. The way you post reads, you can just cap all the skills whenever you want.


And to the origional poster, great idea, but put the quests somewhere hard. I have a N/Mo with 0 skill points that used to be a N/Ele. Just to buy the standard Mo skills I spent all the skill points I had saved. I am missing many Ele and Mo skills. It is not fun to switch professions.

That's the main issue - lack of skill points. For every elite you want to capture and for the many skills you can only buy from skill trainers you'll first need to 'level', which gets harder and harder for each point you obtain. This is an issue for people unlocking skills for their primary and original secondary already, for someone switching secondary professions it's even worse. Having to 'grind' this way seems to be what ArenaNet is trying to prevent, so it would be logical for them to introduce some way to get around this limitation, and the most simple solution would be to just drop the skill point system (and possibly increase the gold cost for buying skills, although their cost already becomes higher and higher for each skill you buy - would be a decent way to bleed money from the economy).

But I guess ArenaNet have this skill points system to stop 2 things: 1. people who already have a character finished the entire game with a lot of gold could just buy up all the skills with a new character without any opportunity cost (Not very hard to get from Ascalon to Thunderhead Keep in 1-2 day if you play with a good team) . 2. It would basicly took the whole idea about secondary profession away, the skill point system require you to make a decision on whether you want 1 secondary with a lot of skills, or multiple secondary with few skills each. (Ok, you can get around the second problem by grinding as you said, but except for people who play 24/7, not many people would go and get 75 skill points for another complete set of a second secondary profession skill)

Then why are the secondary profession switching quests there in the first place, if they don't want you to have a decent chance at actually being able to play that secondary profession?

Challenge in this game is NOT in the amount of hours you have to spend. You can change around both primary and secondary profession by simply deleting your character, restarting it with the new classes and spending a bunch of hours levelling it up/gathering skills, same as other RPGs. I believe the secondary switching quests are there to give people an opportunity to change around their secondary (if they're not satisfied with their original choice) without having to re-roll their character from scratch, but because of the skill point system and broken quests as indicated in the OP, this fails miserably - re-rolling the character is currently actually a faster method of obtaining the skills you want than switching secondary profession through a quest.

People buying up all the skills for a new secondary class would be perfect. Excess money gets removed from the economy, something Guild Wars currently really needs if gold is to mean anything in three months from now. People who already finished all the missions and want to start playing PvP instead of having to redo PvE with a different classed character can simply spend all the gold they have no other purpose for on skills. I don't understand why you want them to repeat things they already proved capable of - like you said, it requires a character who already finished the entire game.

I guess its a way to unlock skills for other classes w/o having to start a new game. Although IMHO, its just ANET's way for people to grind some more for xp, they just promote soloing for this game yet deals absolute wrath on soloers.

Alot of people have done the entire game with hench only....so ANet was exactly correct. Solo (Meaning youre the only 'real' player) is very doable.

Back on topic: Maybe a solution to this would be to fix the quest thing, reopen those old skill quests and allow them to be redoable. Maybe even a percentage of your SP's refunded. If you change your sub prof more than once, that percentage gets much lower. This makes it easier to change your sub, but still very, very hard to just unlock everything with one character.

Why would you want to make unlocking everything using one character very very hard? Someone focusing on unlocking everything will clearly play through the entire game at least once, so why exactly should he or she be forced to do that all over again to cover the other classes? I just can't understand that train of thought.

One character means one character, one sub, and a chance to change if you dislike your sub without starting a new character (which is very generous of ANet to begin with), not 6 in one. It's as intended. If it was inteded the other way they would only give you two slots, one for a pve unlocking character and one for instant pvp. I do agree as it is, it's very harsh to change your sub, but if Anet didn't mind you unlocking all skills with one character, it would be a full SP refund and quest reopener right out of the box.

Anyways, its so much faster just to run another character through, even if they did give all quests back and an SP refund.

I can't agree more with the premiss of the thread.

WITHOUT allowing players to do the secondary quests with a new secondary [and how does this make sense??] you MAKE people do insane amounts of grind for skill points without trying the different content - 2 exact things GW is supposed to be against right?

Meanwhile with only 4 slots (wth?!) you're forced to use at least 3 (provided you make combos stretching every profession there) rpg ones to do the unlocks. Yay. 1 for pvp after you play 3 pve chars to death in every manageable fashion to play the full pvp game. By that time the expansion will be around and you'll be behind the 8ball again..

Yeah at first I was excited and thought GOOD JOB GW! when I heard you could change the secondary class later - maybe my warrior/ranger wasn't the best combination [even though I went for the whole warrior good with a bow too thing so you'd hope that'd work out] and I could do something about it w/o scrapping him.

BUT now I'd learn I'd have to grind for skill points like a SOB if I do so.

Thanks but no thanks :b

I, for one, say that after ascending (not reaching level 20), skill points shouldn't be needed to purchase new skills.

And for all those Mesmer players out there, you'd probably understand me the most. The secondary class change into a Mesmer is almost absolutely useless because lots of Mesmer skills are very situational. By the time I realized I could switch my sub and into Mesmer, I had only three skill points left. I could do absolutely nothing except maybe just conjure phantasm (which isn't the whole premise of being a Mesmer). My now Elementalist/Mesmer was as good as being an Elementalist straight. Could I get any more skills without battling on hours end to get ONE skill point? Nope. All I had was three skill points at the time and I definitely believe that's not enough to put the Elementalist/Mesmer build to its full potential.

In a sense, to me, there's really no point in changing your secondary profession. I went through the game as an Elementalist/Monk, used skills from both classes, ascended, changed it to Elementalist/Mesmer to try it out, and it just didn't work. No, I'm not saying that Elementalist/Mesmers suck (hell, quite the opposite), but I just couldn't do a damn thing because my lack of skill points didn't let me do much period except to switch back to being an Elementalist/Monk. It sucked. It sucked hard. And it just seemed pointless to switch your secondary class.

Anyways, that's my two cents on the thing.

I think you guys looked at the secondary changing quest the wrong way. Have you actually read the red letters when you choose a secondary? It said clearly there is no turning back once you made the decision, so ArenaNet is already generous in that regard. Secondary changing quest are there to allow you to test some combos you might liked for your next character, but it is not there so you can change into any secondary at no cost. I think the way skill points system and broken secondary quest after you change secondary is just fine. It allows people to experiment with new ideas without starting a character. (Eg. My air E/Me have all the skills unlocked for E and Me, but I never used any other mesmer skills except Energy Drain and Power Drain for energy management) The current "penalty" for unlocking another set of skills for a second secondary is quite large and would stop all the people who want to attempt it except the people who just love this game and play 24/7. If you guys complain about this and say it is not how the game should be played, you might as well go and argue why they didn't remove Lornar's Pass from the game because it allows you to bypass so many missions and get ascension armor way before you should and obviously the mission back in northern shiverpeaks aren't intended for you to do with that kind of armor.

glasszon, many people use their secondary profession quite intensely, and I don't believe ArenaNet intends to restrict your creativity involving your secondary profession in any way. I wouldn't call the current implementation of switching secondary class 'generous' because it currently effectively gimps your character - you lose access to all the secondary skills you had previously, but due to the skill point system and broken quests you don't get a decent chance to get back up to strength.

Your argumentation of 'I don't use that many skills from my secondary profession anyway' just doesn't float for a lot of builds (a healing type E/Mo for instance who uses energy storage for a large tank of healing energy could easily want eight monk skills on her bar) and basically seems to excuse a flawed system because it happens to interfere less with your playing style exclusively.

With ArenaNet's stated dislike for introducing grind (see the latest Game Updates snippet about the planned update for Wednesday), do you really think this is what they intended?

I have to agree that I believe the current system is unintentional and certainly a bit restrictive. I do not want to play through three more characters in order to unlock all skills properly for every class, the problem is, I cannot spend hours upon hours a day to get another skill point, or even earn the massive gold costs to unlock enough skills for choice and feasability in a class. Unfortunately, I think ArenaNet kind of screwed itself in two positions, first, the unlock all skills ability in BWE, and the old games where you began at 15. Missions were originally balanced, and somewhat more difficult I might add, even Post Searing Ascalon, for these level 15-20's, and there is more to be learned in failure of possessing all things and experimentation, than through a tutorial. Then, they gave us the unlock command, but didn't unlock upgrades, sure it means drops become useless, but really, when did you need them now? I need them to get my 15k armor to look different, why not force people to simply obtain fame and ranks to look different and mightier, without actually getting an increase, or complete missions to more directly unlock these aesthetic changes, that is what it comes down to after Droknar's Forge. But, I would've spent a great deal of time experimenting with ever class as primary and secondary, various attributes for each, a bevy of skills and upgrades to do, different armors, however, that would now require me to grind the entire thing out, which I don't want to.

Granted, they won't really allow us to do this now, that would be a drastic change, however, I say giving us repeatable quests for skill gain is not the worst idea, I've downed thousands into the current systems in order to make any secondary I choose at least somewhat viable for my style of play, especially as a Warrior, I can only think of the more shifting styles for other classes, since all we do is rush in and hit things.

From a RP perspective, reopening all of those quests you've already done doesn't make much sense, does it?

I know it isn't the answer you'd like to hear, but you could just save up all of those quests that give skills for both primary and secondary professions until after you've unlocked additional secondaries. That's what I did for my ranger. Now, I'm going back and completing the quests with the secondary I want the skill for (after I made a complete list of which quest gives which skill). Sure, it was a pain, but I got plenty of skill points left over to buy non-questable skills.

I agree that leveling for skill points needs to be removed. It's bad enough that for some of us, our next skill purchase will be 500+ for a single skill. But to get all of that exp for a single skill point? Not cool.

I think you don't quite understand what I try to say, all I said is, to test a new build or combo involving another secondary does not require many skills at all, all you need is a maximum of 8 (you can't have more than that on the skill bar at the same time). It is not difficult at all to get 8 skill points past level 20, just go to do all those underworld or fissure quest and you will get your experience in no time, you can always repeat them as many times as you wanted. (Which shouldn't be necessary if all you test is 1 new combo, there is tons of exp to be had with those missions, up to 10k per mission if you manage to complete them)

Also, please correct me if I am wrong, I know a friend who loves to change secondary, and he told me that if you have that skill prior to the change, you will get them back once you change back to that profession. (Let me put it in context incase I didn't explain it clear enough, I mean for example if I had Chain Lightning and Lightning Strike already available for a Mo/E, even though you "lost" it when you change to Mo/Me for example, but you will get the skill back immediately once you change back to Mo/E, so you can use Chain Lightning and Lightning Strike without having to purchase them again from a NPC) So obviously if you remove the skill system, it basicly make the choice for secondary totally pointless, it is also pointless for you to do all those side missions except for fun. Why would I spend 1-2 hours doing a mission for a reward that I could get in 15 minutes by some trading for profit and use those profit to purchase those skill from an NPC instead? There is simply no reward for doing those missions at all, because exp beyond level 20 do no good except gives you skill points and reward that gives free skills also basicly gives you free gold + free skill point as you don't have to purchase them via the NPC. If you remove skill points system, you will get a lot of people who will simply get rushed to Ascension as quick as possible in order to reach level 20, and just forget about doing any mission after that and focus on trading for gold in order to obtain all skills in 1 day. Is that what ArenaNet wants?

Vangor: How long do you take to plan each character? I usually spend 10-20 hours planning a new character by using character builders, asking friends in game and finally, I will do some testing in game once I am sure it will work by doing those secondary changing quest. I have yet to mess up a character using this method and I believe this is what skill point based system is designed for. If imagine you are playing Strategic games like Starcraft, you will always think about your starting moves before you even started the match by assessing how well your opponents were, what race they are using and possible techniques they might use. It is exactly the same thing that you should do in Guild Wars, plan your character carefully before you started it, not after. I think skill points system are there to force people to think more about what they are doing. Which I believe is exactly what ArenaNet wants.

What you guys are suggesting about the removal of skill points system is to simply make Guild War into a RPG version of Counter-Strike, where everyone will be exactly equal and the team with the best teamwork and actions per minute (how many things you do in 1 minute) would win the round. What Strategy it involves in remembering all your hotkeys and know to use it as fast as possible?

If anything I wish it was easier to gain more skill points... since gaining even a single one is annoying...

It is not difficult to get 500 gold at all, if you have about 10k gold, you can double this in 30 minutes of playing time by buying stuff low and sell them when the price is high, remember the economy in Guild Wars is quite different from real world, the price variation for items could vary significantly over a period of a few days.

Glass, most of the time testing a "build" requires gaining elite skills of that build, spending a long time unlocking other non-elites which cannot be purchased and are not from the few starting quests you can have, as well as changing it a few times, keeping what works, and does not.

As well Cymmina, this seems pointless, as I did not even know I could switch secondary classes when the game was originally released, and thought I had known what I wanted, instead, chose to be a War/E, luckily, I can do what I want right now, however, I cannot seem to find most skills if I wanted to be an Elementalist.

And glass, with all games you could potentially just grind out to get everything, that is not what Guild Wars is about however. In WoW, I could spend two weeks and level any character, I could have each class on hand, and then begin to gear them out with a few more weeks of raiding, so essentially, no one is restricted, but this is not realistic.

Me, I don't want to go out to strictly purchase all of my skills, especially not sitting in the midst of town to strictly buy and sell if I can even actually make money at it, since prices could very well drop all the same or demand simply moves off, nor do I want to fight constantly in order to earn gold and experience in order to actually purchase my skills, especially not both.

That is the problem is that it feels so pointless to do so, restarting a character has never been fun for me, I choose what I want because I tend to know what I want, however, here is a game which it is rather viable to "start over", creating a PvP character, but the mechanic to do it requires quite a bit of time because of the current set up. Since we cannot use more than eight skills, there won't be an abuse of gaining these, and it is strictly our misfortune to have gotten to this point, wish to try other things, and be rather unable to unless we are to completely reroll, which I think is boring, or grind endlessly for a game which says you won't have to grind.

What I'm talking about is people who first start Guild Wars with their favourite profession, get told they need a secondary profession and basically pick one without much thought, then play through the entire game. Gradually they begin to understand what the other classes are about, and begin to regret their choice of secondary profession, but can't be bothered to start their entire character over. Cue secondary change quests. I'm not buying the "they're there just so you can experiment a little before changing back to your original secondary" proposition, but the last word on that lies with ArenaNet.

The skill quests typically offer skills before they become available from a skill trader (e.g. Balthazar's Spirit can be earned in Beacon's Perch, or bought lateron in Lion's Arch). Skill points don't influence the natural skill procurement until the late game, when you've already finished all the quests and are working to collect the last skills for your class.

GW will never fully be Counter-Strike. Out of approximately 150 skills each player can take along only 8 skills, and has to choose to distribute his attribute points as she sees fit. Many skills need careful timing to work properly, or are heavily situational (pretty much the entire Mesmer class works like this), so it's so much more than using all your hotkeys as fast as possible.

You're entirely right about the planning - I spend a lot more time plotting builds than actually playing GW (enjoying both equally). But that's only possible when the moment I step into GW I have the skills I intend to use at my disposal, and don't need to grind three or four levels before I can buy them. Your suggestion of planning an entire character is way too rigid for my taste: different PvE maps require different builds to function properly, and I like experimenting with new builds a lot, and that requires versatility in skills to work. If ArenaNet intended people to stick with one build they designed before starting, there wouldn't be attribute refunds, there wouldn't be secondary change quests. And all this is just concerning PvE, in PvP being able to change your character around at the drop of a hat is critical. Premades exist for that, but premades still need to get their skills unlocked.

I think a large portion of the replayability of Guild Wars lies in having a 'finished' character that you can flexibly change around a lot to play various roles in groups. The replayability isn't in doing the same thing over and over again before you can have fun with experimenting.

First of all I'd like to see levels after 20 be fixed in XP cost... (rather than increasing, which is the current situation afaik?)

I'd also like to see big xp rewards in "proper" pvp, say GvG or holding the HoH. Say, for example, most people can get a skill point just from winning a ranked match or holding the HoH for a round.

This means there's a significant incentive for PvE characters to play PvP once they are finished with the storyline. And a significant incentive for pvp players to pay more attention to their pve character.

Incidentally - if you want to unlock a lot of skills fast, why not make a 2nd character identical to the 1st, get the exact 8 skills for your favorite pve build asap, and save up all the rest of your quests and skill points, and then swap secondaries around after ascension and quickly get the skills you want? You can unlock your preferred skills across most of the classes without needing to finish the game with 3 characters. You can also twink the new character with goodies from the 1st to make things a little easier. Even better if you have friends to run you to ascension or Drognak's Forge.

It's not going to get you "all the skills" any quicker, but it will get you the main ones across all classes with just 2 chars.

That is exactly what we want, to an extent. The strategy involved is selecting a set of skills across 8 people that work well together, and coordinating those players to use them at the appopriate times on the most optimal targets.

I currently have a Mo/E with nearly 700,000 experience. I have 28 of 30 elites between the professions, all of the Elementalist skills, and I'm missing about 10 Monk skills. I have 1 capture signet left. 0 skill points. 70 platinum and rising. 275 hours of gameplay. And each skill point is increasingly more difficult to get (need more XP for the 'level up').

The "grind for skill points" system is stupid. It definitely needs to be addressed in some way.

You get skill points from PvP'ing (whenever your fame rank rises, as detailed here ), so that form of reward is in.

Unlocking skills fast with a second character isn't exactly a practical thing. That character will start in pre-searing Ascalon, so unless you happen to be after the starting skills, there's nothing fast about it - you're basically replaying the PvE portion all over before you reach the point where you can get the skills you want, so it's not exactly a quick fix. Being run to Droknar's Forge by someone is one way of speeding this process up, but it's a rather crooked method, and still doesn't solve anything for the secondary switching quests.

Getting all the main skills usually isn't the issue, it's basically wanting just that one skill when facing defeat somewhere, the skill you never thought you'd need but right now badly need to counter what killed you moments earlier, i.e. being able to optimally adapt to circumstances.

According to Ensign, you no longer gain Skill Points from Fame. And it makes sense, considering your fame is account-wide. Not to mention that the system that did exist was incredibly slow. The highest ranked players are only around 8-10... even 10 more skill points isn't much. You can probably gain 10 skill points by grinding PvE faster than climbing up the Fame ladder.

I changed my sec profession and its realy hard to get the imaginary lvl ups for all the skills .

But i dont want to buy them! because the 24/ players have all the money to buy them in seconds but the casual player doesnt. Form my point of view the best option is to add more quests. Quest wich u can do after changing ur sec professsion to earn skills from that profession. this would also add some "after lvl20" content, too!

Perhaps tack on skill points to all the post ascension quests and adding more quests would alleviate this problem?

Ok they changed the exp system. Great Now we need more quests *g*