1 week of Factions: making people buy skills is the stupidest move ever?

aron searle

aron searle

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Aug 2005

Mo/

I dont like it

But i didnt like the old system

Im not making a new charachter, but i do want to try the secondarys. After beating the game i made about 20k, without farming. wow 20 skills..............

Ive never liked the 1k cap, so its never been a great system. Its ok for running multiple charachters through the game, but if you want UAX for just 1or2 toons, your looking at a huge amount of money, just for the elites (for a non farmer), and you can either do all the fed-ex quests to unlock (although you cant for the ass and rit), or you pay a ton of money to buy them.

With the way the game has changed in factions, the best way for me would be any skill unlocked is over the account including any new charachters you make if they are factions onwards charachters, it wont break the game as it would have to have that happen to someone in pre seering.

Quote:
Patience is the key here. Do you need ALL assassin skills?
So your defence for a slow unlocking system is to argue do you need the skills, thats not actually constructive in any way. Comment on why you think its ok, not whether you think people need it.

Navaros

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2005

Mo/Me

The core problem with the "buying skills" concept falls directly back to the horrible trade system.

The devs should have made the horrible trade system priority #1 right after Chapter 1 was released. Instead, they did nothing about the issue even a year later, making it so that only people who engage in hardcore trade spamming can make any money.

Fix the horrible trade system so that it does not require spamming or monitoring the spam of others, and no one would be complaining about having to buy skills because they would all have plenty of money.

guppy

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Mar 2006

Mo/Me

I have to agree with that.. the trade system really helps suppress the economy. As if farmers and ebay didn't do enough to the economy of guild wars? :P

It would be nice if they downplayed money more until the economy becomes more respectable. Their idea is good, but its based on money and so the economy which is one of the downsides to the game.

oljomo

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Mar 2006

Hi

Dont know how people only managed to make 20k going through the whole game, so far ive unlocked practically all the ritualist skills 9and a fair few monke = elites as well) with the money ive got just playing throught the game. IMO it is MUCH quicker to get all the skills in factions than prophecies, as the amount of income golwise is much higher for much more interesing things (quests>farming)

oljomo

NoChance

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: May 2005

it's great that now you get the skills you want instead of fixed ones as in Prophecies. everyone complains about being forced to play a fire mage for the first chunk of Prophecies... well now you get to choose.

this way, theoretically, you get to experiment with builds more freely.
i
n practice however, I'll bet (since most players don't like thinking about builds), they're just buying the skills for cookie cutter builds from the very beginning and playing these builds exclusively -- thus preventing experimentation.

Wessels

Academy Page

Join Date: Nov 2005

Boyz from the Dwarf

Mo/N

Quote:
It's clear why they did this, and I agree with their reasoning. However, I feel there are simply too many money-sinks. Max armor costs considerably more than Droknar's(tons of rare materials), skills and signets of capture, guild hall NPCs, the list goes on. Unless I'm completely missing something, the amount of money-sinks far outweighs the means to make back the gold you spend. That's my only frustration with Factions; spending so much and gaining so little back. You can't always depend on carrying keys everywhere you go to make profit. I'll eventually find some way to efficiently earn gold, it's just very frustrating right now as I try to advance my many characters through the game and get them all equipped.
And not to forget: picking up ALL items to sell is nigh on impossible because you run out of storage space fast now. I think that issue should be #1 on the "to-do" -list of the devs . If and when we have sufficient space to store stuff we can easily pick up and sell/salvage all drops to get the cash for skills.

aron searle

aron searle

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Aug 2005

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by oljomo
Hi

Dont know how people only managed to make 20k going through the whole game, so far ive unlocked practically all the ritualist skills 9and a fair few monke = elites as well) with the money ive got just playing throught the game. IMO it is MUCH quicker to get all the skills in factions than prophecies, as the amount of income golwise is much higher for much more interesing things (quests>farming)

oljomo
Through playing the game i got no green drops, apart from the last one where you get given one (i chose the daggers for a guildee so i could have sold them), i didnt get any golds, or super runes. Just whites, & blues. And the quests dont offer more money than a few hundred on average, though the late ones offer more there are not many of them. Im not complaining about making money, as really if i want money i can farm, or do the new faction arenas and sell the jadiete.

but i think i shouldnt have to do either/both to earn the thousands of plat i need to unlock the rit and ass skills. Personally i would like to see skills capped at 500g.

This system hurts the poorer players the most.

lg5000

lg5000

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2005

Australia

Quote:
Originally Posted by aron searle
I dont like it

Ive never liked the 1k cap, so its never been a great system. Its ok for running multiple charachters through the game, but if you want UAX for just 1or2 toons, your looking at a huge amount of money, just for the elites (for a non farmer), and you can either do all the fed-ex quests to unlock (although you cant for the ass and rit), or you pay a ton of money to buy them.
I capped all elites onto one toon.. why I have things like unyielding aura on my mesmer, when, as a mesmer primary, you have a 50% failure chance with that skill, is something I'm not sure of. There are skills which are COMPLETLY usless to you unless you are that primary class. Having all skills on one character is something you do due to bordom/because you can and you know well in advance that it will be expensive to do so. The game wasn't designed for that as seen by the primary profession skills which are usless on other classes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by aron searle
So your defence for a slow unlocking system is to argue do you need the skills, thats not actually constructive in any way. Comment on why you think its ok, not whether you think people need it.
No, my 'defence' was that if you don't have the money, reading the skill description and thinking about what you're buying is a way of saving money till you have enough money to buy more skills. Besides, you want slow? Go back to Tyria and unlock skills via skill quests or via buying skills... slow and boring.

Oh, and there was a problem with me asking a question?

KamikazeChicken

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Aug 2005

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by aron searle
So your defence for a slow unlocking system is to argue do you need the skills, thats not actually constructive in any way. Comment on why you think its ok, not whether you think people need it.
The unlocking system is considerably faster in terms of UNLOCKING for PvP creation. Acquisition for individual PvE characters may be slightly slower. I was getting 10 nonelite skill unlocks/hour, but I wasn't getting those skills for a character I planned on keeping longer than those 2 hour periods.

Weezer_Blue

Weezer_Blue

Elite Guru

Join Date: Feb 2005

Just a Box in a Cage

Hurry Up The Cakes [Oven]

You may have been more credible if you... I dunno... learned to spell? Or maybe offered a solution? "Skills are too expensive for a casual player who must worry about armour and weapons as well. Quests should give greater gold rewards to allow skill purchases." would have been a better subject for this thread than "omgwtfbqq its teh crap. omgwiifix".

thunderpower

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2006

Europe

KiSS

Quote:
Originally Posted by Weezer_Blue
You may have been more credible if you... I dunno... learned to spell? Or maybe offered a solution? "Skills are too expensive for a casual player who must worry about armour and weapons as well. Quests should give greater gold rewards to allow skill purchases." would have been a better subject for this thread than "omgwtfbqq its teh crap. omgwiifix".
You're talking about me? It's not really clear.

guppy

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Mar 2006

Mo/Me

At least he does have his point that basing the skills on money in a system where the economy is far from perfected was a poor decision on Anet's part, specifically for new players. I don't think however the concept was a bad one, it just needed to be realized in a different way.

MMSDome

MMSDome

Raged Out

Join Date: Sep 2005

if you spent 400k you really jipped yourself, i did the math and my 15k luxon cost me a total of 390k. 15k armor isnt required to buy its if you have the money. You also gain money when playing and questing, you dont need to rush the game. I dont get how people find that fun...

thunderpower

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2006

Europe

KiSS

Quote:
Originally Posted by MMSDome
if you spent 400k you really jipped yourself, i did the math and my 15k luxon cost me a total of 390k. 15k armor isnt required to buy its if you have the money. You also gain money when playing and questing, you dont need to rush the game. I dont get how people find that fun...
First of all, I got all the new non elite skills. And i did that with my existing lvl 20 toons from Tyria since i WAS SAVING for Factions, skill points and money. So every skill costed me 1plat straight.

Also if you do the math, i have 2 sets of armor, a 15k set with additional leggins and gauntles, also 2 15k masks. I have an additional set of 1.5k armor. On both cest pieces (15k and 1.5k) i have a sup vigor, forgot to put that to the runes section.

I was trying to make my account 100% pvp ready without having to spend 2-3 weeks of casual pvp to unlock the skills.

All in all it was 400k. And maybe some cap signets for my assasin.

Eet GnomeSmasher

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2005

In my head

Quote:
Originally Posted by guppy
At least he does have his point that basing the skills on money in a system where the economy is far from perfected was a poor decision on Anet's part, specifically for new players. I don't think however the concept was a bad one, it just needed to be realized in a different way.
Actually for new players, the cost to buy a skill is very very low. The 1k per skill is only for people who have played for a while and bought quite a lot of skills.

However, I still do think that the gold rewards for the quests should be upped a little more.

MMSDome

MMSDome

Raged Out

Join Date: Sep 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by thunderpower
First of all, I got all the new non elite skills. And i did that with my existing lvl 20 toons from Tyria since i WAS SAVING for Factions, skill points and money. So every skill costed me 1plat straight.

Also if you do the math, i have 2 sets of armor, a 15k set with additional leggins and gauntles, also 2 15k masks. I have an additional set of 1.5k armor. On both cest pieces (15k and 1.5k) i have a sup vigor, forgot to put that to the runes section.

I was trying to make my account 100% pvp ready without having to spend 2-3 weeks of casual pvp to unlock the skills.

All in all it was 400k. And maybe some cap signets for my assasin.
see most casual gamers dont do this. Yes it was expensive because you did more then most people would. Not everyone goes out and buys all skills on their character and goes out on an extra limb like that. You cant "express" bad opinions when you did something that will cost a lot of money man.

I mean NCSOFT made it so easy to get skill points and experience that that isnt a problem anymore. Kind of hard to complain when they hand it to you on a crystalline platter glazed in Jadeite.

Eet GnomeSmasher

Banned

Join Date: Apr 2005

In my head

Exactly. He spent gold on two sets of 15k armor within a span of a week and he's complaining that the current system sucks because he has no gold? Sorry but that's just dumb.

noblepaladin

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2005

I think alot of people are complaining that skills cost too much gold because there are so many things that you can buy early on now. In the old system, you don't use the skill trainers until the end of the game. You had gold in the bank because there is nothing to buy.

However, now when you go to the skill trainer, you have many skills you can buy, and you get skill points very fast so you can actually spend all your gold. If you can buy every skill in the game at the beginning of prophecies, you would be poor as hell too.

What was most annoying for me in prophecies was that my Mesmer needed to unlock some skills for my other secondary professions and I had no more skill points left. Trying to get 4 skill points so I can make a particular build is so annoying... Thank god for these high exp rewarding quests. The unlock rate is very high early game in prophecies, but it really goes to a stop near the end unless you use 55 Monk and farm trolls because there are no easy ways to get skill points.