Random Skill Arena

I think Guild Wars is in need for another type of PVP Arena.

The basic concept of this arena would be to randomly select skills of the user's professions, and place them into the skill bar. The idea is to basically get rid of boring/repetitive FotM builds and actually introduce some "hey lets just have fun" feelings into pvp.

The only way to work is to balance attributes, or else it would be gambling. I think it would work best if, for only this arena, ALL attributes are placed at 10 or 11, but runes can raise it. Otherwise, someone who never normally put anything into, say, healing, would not be useless if he gets stuck with a majority of healing spells.

I also think that this arena should be placed probably at Augury Rock. Its a good location because its the place of ascension (level 20's), and its the start of elite skills. I would say Ember Light Camp's arena revival would be better, but not enough people go there.

Finally, if its implemented, call the arena One and Two =)

good idea? bad idea? signed? not? come on....input please =)

this would be GREAT. i would play gw again if something like this was in the game.
/signedx10

more pvp modes is always welcomed

Yeah. Fun to get 6 mantras on a mesmer?

/signed. It would give people a new look at their own character. You could find out if certain skills are more (or less) useful than you thought they were. Definitely a great way to experience possible builds.

/SIGNED!

oh, and only people with REAL skill and ability would do well, which would rock.

Now, would it be skills that character has unlocked or everything? Otherwise, you'll probably get people who go through the game and only get 8 perfect skills to dominate the arena.

Is it 1v1 or more? If 1v1, make sure res sig and such are disabled.

It would be fun, and it's only a game, so it wouldnt matter if you were against a person with awesome skills. The next time, they might have crappy ones. Sounds like an awesome idea!

Yeah! I guess it would need to allow certain locked skills to be unlocked only for this arena, to discourage people who only decide to get 8 skills total for the entire game (unfair advantage). I wonder if Gaile would be kind enough to share her thoughts...

The only way this would be cool is if the random skills you got only came from the attributes you had major points in... say 5 or 6 + levels.

I'd had to have only 1 or 2 points in something and end up with 4 or 5 skills in that attribute. No amount of personal skill would bring a win in that situation.

Interesting idea though... I'd certainly give it a try.

I think it would be best to have all attributes at either 10 or 11 (+runes), temporarily, for this reason.

i like it!

would skills change every fight, or would you fight with the same set of skills until defeated?

either way there should also be a short delay before the first fight with new skills, so you can examine and think about your skills a bit.

We're lacking in the pvp area so sure, what the heck.

I love it...would take a lot of people's brainpower to actually rely on actual skill rather than a preset build

Nice idea, and would like to see this implemented.

Though I do suspect you would end up with players continually leaving as they got a bunch of skills they do not want to use.

But would be fun to go in not knowing what skills you would have at your disposal and working out a good combination in the short space of time before the battle starts.

why would a person play that Arena then?
if it does not give any special benefit, or much more rewards then the other arenas he could/would play a normal arena instead.
and since the whole purpose of such an arena is to play with random skills...

i think there might be actually less leavers, because all the "mending Wa/Mo's" and fotm-morons are not interested in such an Arena, thus reducing the ammount of idiots there...

This would be good. I might actually play this one, as long as it doesn't have a loophole of using only skills you've unlocked. Maybe make it not have elite skills.

This idea is even worse than the "jump to conclusions mat." Just my opinion.

We might as well put in random levels, random armor, and random classes. We could even have a series of three different games, like starcraft, Half-life, and guild-wars, and it randomly pairs you up for fights on a random game.

Why are we trying to turn guild-wars into a slot machine? Are you really that bored with pvp?

Doesn't this give a huge advantage to warriors and rangers?

/signed (almost)

I see a few problems that need to be addressed. What if a warrior is equipped with hammer skills, but doesn't carry a hammer? Or a Ranger gets Pet skills without Charm Animal equipped? An Elementalist gets Attune to Fire without Fire spells? A Necromancer gets Taste of Death without any Animate X spells? Etc. There are too many skills that rely on other skills, or weapons, to be useful at all. I think this issue must be accomodated.

Also, since i DO like the idea, I added suggestions:
1. Balance of Skill TYPES (ie, not 5 mantras)
2. Option for Resurrection Signet (this is the one skill not random), or, none at all.
3. Option for Elite (on, off, or maybe)

I find mostly good comments, and a few negatives. Thats cool, cus thats how ideas build over time. Lemme think of fixes for galkraft:

1. Probability of 5 mantras is highly unprobable....and shouldnt happen. Perhaps a limit to 2 or 3 on certain skill groups (spirits, mantra, res (lol 5 res spells), ect.)
2. One type of res should probably be standard, you are right. Either that or none...which is also interesting...
3. Elite: Random 1 elite, if the player doesnt have one, one is temporarily unlocked (balance)

Yeah and to prevent people unlocking 8 uber skills for unbalance as someone else mentioned, I think a set of 20 basic spells should be shuffled in regardless of whether you have them or not.

Also, I dont see a huge advantage to ranger/warriors...
1. Its a team game, with a group of people. Kind of like competition arena.
2. Hell if smites used to own. Ele's might get blinding flash, mesmers and necros are fine imo, and monks, well, do your job.

Steerpike, this is not out of "whatever" styling, but because, indeed, pvp is getting boring and predictable. I bet i can go to tombs and fight a IWAY team right now. That's what I'm trying to get away from.

Another interesting idea was whether to shuffle skills every round or at defeat. Thats up for grabs. If skills stay the same and the random group goes to HOH...
1. Another Sissy Boys style guild should pop up.
2. That would be pretty tight
3. With obserever mode, a new "random" build would probably catch on fire...

Thanks for the thoughts, again...

And i still want the arena to be named after me =P

I really like the idea of limited formats in general- so I have to say that a random arena sounds fun.

Definetely set all attributes to a certain level while in the arena- that's a great call.

I think a good way to prevent some (but not all) bad-skill set screws would be to have a "skill mulligan". If you don't like your initial skill bar, you can talk to an NPC in the arena area to reset them. How many times? There's advantages to saying only one mulligan, and advantages to giving as many as people want.

BTW, I would want to have the skills be random from the entire skill set- not just unlocked skills. That would be way more fun. And one might even say "wow, I must have this skill!"

I like this idea, but think they should do it more as a CCG style sealed deck tournament.

In other words, you get, say, 8 randomly selected skills from each of your professions. You're free to use whichever attributes and items you possess however you see fit to make use of those skills.

One issue I can already see, though, is that entry would have to be run on a long timer (a few minutes instead of the 30 seconds for most arenas). Otherwise, people would just map out and back in over and over until they got the skills they wanted.

/signed because no one can come in and so "ROFLMAOPWNTKTHXBAI" because they didn't even design the build. The only thing is that when someone stumbles across a good build, they write down the skills :P

I actually think it would be interesting if new builds came out of this random generator.

And yeah, I was thinking of letting people randomly get all skills, even though they dont have them, cus it would be interesting and fun for the players. fun>win, IMO...

Anet, hear us out!

Really, I cannot see this happening too much, especially with refunds eliminated now, but I have tried out numerous extra builds through PvP characters, as well as the fact that as amusing as it would be, you will have people who will leave because of a poor set up, or else you will end up having a lack of randomization which would give it that edge of fun. I mean, the PvP characters do sort of add this in already, because you are not locked into a single character type, a very good primary/secondary is readily available, skills you have opened are open to you, and whatever set up is ready, so you can just enter with a slightly random and not gimped character to see how it goes, don't like em, change skills, points, or delete em and create a new.

Rather than go over the list of areas which need to be fleshed out before this can go on (like, as unfair as 5 mantras are, I don't use 5 different adrenaline attacks, or want 5 energy based attacks on my warrior, or want more than 2 stances), as great as the idea would be, it is a novelty, and would require a massive amount of effort for what I think would be something quick to die, more gametypes are plausible which I think they should be creating first.

Wow, I'm surprised such an idea gets so much support - whilst my recent post "Random Tombs" gets only hate :P

I think random skills is kinda pointless... like 7 times out of 10 (94.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot...) you'll get something with no attacks, or some other unusable build.

What -would- be interesting tho, is an arena where Skills that get used very often, become less powerful (green numbers get modified down, costs increase, recharge/cast times increase) and skills that get used very rarely, become more powerful. (green numbers go up, costs decrease, recharge / cast times decrease)

It can be the "experimental zone" to procedurally test skills balancing... at what point does Dwarven Battle Stance become useful? How much does Ether Renewal need to be toned down before it's no better than Ether Prodigy? etc. etc.

The feedback can be used to improve the main game, and we can have an arena where following FoTM's is deliberately pointless.

Sorry bout that...that you dont get support on youre thinger. But it is a bit different...random groups in tombs dont do too well. Its only good in the beginning so you can bump up your fame 1 at a time or something.

I think they can work around with your concerns of useless builds, especially cus probably of getting all mantras is like winning the lotto.

Any other thoughts, people?

A simple /signed will do, or suggestions if you have, or flames, if necessary =)